The Encyclopedia Biotica
by LogicalPremise
Summary: A study of the biological origins, theory and powers of biotics. Free to use for all
1. Chapter 1 - Biotic Basics

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

_**A/N: ** I seem to have a fixation on documents, no? I've actually been working on this one for some time, since about chapter 20 of OSABC, but I had to re-write it several times and removed a great deal of useless information that I may add back later assuming I can make it all fit. _

_Biotics has bugged me since the start, as simply slapping on a few words about 'mass effect fields' does not make space magic any less magicky. I've wanted to figure out how it actually works , but the best I can do is come up with a biological basis for how each race gets biotics , some notes on biotic theory, and a compilation of powers.  
_

_With the exception of the Glorious, there's not a ton here that contradicts established Canon, so feel free to use this in your own works if need be.  
_

* * *

**What is Biotics?**

Biotics the ability for some lifeforms to create mass effect fields using element zero accumulations embedded in body tissues, bones, or nervous systems. These powers are accessed and augmented by using some form of mechanical amplification device, usually surgically installed. Biotic individuals can knock enemies over from a distance, lift them into the air, generate gravitational vortices to tear obstacles or enemies apart, or create protective barriers.

**Biotic Basics:**

At it's simplest, a biotic is a living being with eezo contamination that utilizes their bodies natural electrical nervous fields to generate various mass effects. Most biotic abilities fall into one of three categories. The simplest of these are instinctive abilities, such as barriers, biotic martial arts, and direct kinetic effects. These rely on a direct manipulation of mass effect energies.

More complicated are invoked effects, which require some level of control over the mass effect field. Most of what people term 'biotic powers' fall into this category, such as warp fields, biotic explosions, and other indirect applications. These use the body's nervous system to shape the field, almost like a pulsar field.

The most complex biotics are evoked effects, which use the mass effect fields to directly manipulate energy or gravity as a force instead of upon an object. The most spectacular effects that biotics offers, such as singularity or blaze, fall into this category.

Biotic manipulations are taxing on a user. They consume a great deal of energy to perform and put a great deal of stress on a lifeform's nervous system. Most biotics begin to lose potency around middle age, and with the exception of krogan, volus and asari, by the time a being is considered "old" for it's race it's biotic potential has faded to nothing due to nerve system damage.

Most biotics requires some sort of electrical amplifier or neural sheath amplifier to work. These are dubbed "bio-amps" and are either surgically implanted (in the case of humans, batarians, volus, turians, and salarians) or worn close to the skin (as such with krogan, asari, and drell biotics). The differences are minute , with the exception that only asari are natural biotics – without an amp, all other races can only generate very weak effects.

Bio-amps come in multiple strengths. The Asari Conventions on Biotic Usage define amps in one of several 'bands' – civilian, military, and specialist. Various races define their amp types – the SA uses L ratings, while turians use claw ratings. Asari amps are the best for races who can wear them externally, but salarian amps are better for those who require surgical implantation.

* * *

**Biotic Physiology:**

With the exception of the asari, no race has natural biotic abilities that are expressed enough for use without surgical alterations of some kind. Biotics in varying races are expressed in a dizzying number of ways.

**Humans:** human eezo contamination concentrates in the human lymphatic system, specifically in lymph nodes , during uterine development and after birth. Humans can only become biotic if exposed as a fetus, and then only usually if the mother is exposed to airborne contaminants of low toxicity. If exposed to high eezo levels after birth, the corruption of the eezo tends to cause rapid onset lymphatic cancers, sterility and death. But in the development of a fetus, the lymphatic system is mostly composed of totipotent stem cells that can reconfigure themselves around the eezo filtering through the child's body. Few mothers survive the exposure in the long term without immediate medical care, but the resulting child has a portion of their lymphatic system converted to a makeshift eezo-conductive system. As a result, human biotics are measured by the number of 'eezo nodes' in their bodies.

Human biotics typically have between 6 and 8 such nodes, mostly in the torso and neck regions. The compromised immune system means biotics are rarely as healthy as a normal human, more subject to certain bacterial infections, and with a higher baseline of several disorders , including lymphatic cancer in later life, and a neuron-sheath degenerative condition that is lethal unless the biotic is cleansed of all eezo and their nodes removed early on.

Human biotics can express DNA of their alteration to their own children but, so far, no human has yet expressed biotic abilities. Biotics born of two biotic parents , however , are known to be mostly immune to many of the disorders that human biotics suffer, as well as having slightly higher baseline field strengths. The DNA alterations appear to bolster the size and durability of the lymphatic system, meaning that such offspring can withstand the eezo exposure much better than a normal fetus would.

Due to the strain of supporting the changes to the eezo nodes as well as the energy requirements, humans are the most rapacious of energy consumers as biotics, needing to eat well over a third again what normal human could survive off of. Due to the fundamental nature of the changes in a human, pulse suppressors and phase inhibitors have very little effect at stopping human biotics, nor can human biotics be stripped of their abilities without severe (and usually dangerous) surgical operations.

Due to superstitious social beliefs and old stories, human biotics are treated with a great deal of suspicion by average humans. Despite that (or perhaps because of it) human biotics are also often used as political officers over normal humans. The SA takes extremely good care of it's biotics in most cases, but many of the older L2 biotics are frustrated due to issues with their implants and the fact that the newer L3 biotics can blend more easily into human society.

The primary source of human biotics is from accidents with eezo dust, usually from shipping accidents in low orbit. To date, no surgical methods for creating human biotics have been established, due to the fact that only fetal humans can survive the process. As such, many suspect the SA deliberately causes occasional accidents to ensure humanity has a stock of biotic potential children.

Human bio-amps are implanted along the brain stem at the back of the neck, near the base of the skull. They incorporate computers to assist the human nervous system in processing electrical impulses, and are designed for quick removal and replacement. There are currently several levels of implant, the higher the number the more modern the technology.

* * *

**Turians: **Turians can become biotics from birth through puberty upon exposure to eezo, either airborne contaminators or ground radiated. Turian skin is not fully plated during their growth stages, and exposure soaks their plating with eezo , eventually networking across the capillaries and nerves under said plates to form a biotic net. While somewhat resistant to eezo poisoning, due to the fact their nerves are shielded and regenerative, high exposures will kill them faster than low exposures while not increasing their baseline strength much.

Eezo is concentrated in broad bands between the plating itself and the lining that provides nutrients and cooling fluids to the plating. There, the eezo gathers in shallow pockets in the plating, with the turian immune system encasing the eezo in thin cysts called _v'chan _, or 'dust ponds'. The _v'chan _do not move much after puberty, and are mostly distributed equally across the plating of the turian torso. The _v'chan _typically run parallel to the primary nerve trunks in a turian's body, particularly the thick bunches of nerves near the spine.

However, the fact that all of the eezo for a turian is near the surface in packets makes it very vulnerable to damage, but even with severe trauma, most forms of damage do not cause a net loss of biotic power in the turian. The removal of plates, however, disrupts the membrane and will greatly disrupt the turian's ability to focus. As a result, while pulse suppressors do nothing, phase inhibitors can almost totally nullify turian biotics. Anti-biotic drugs are also mostly ineffective.

Since turian biotics doesn't compromise the body, the only real issues turian biotics face is the weaker nature of their plating and the fact that it's destruction weakens their overall biotic potential. Like humans, exposure to eezo after a certain stage of development just poisons them, as the body can no longer adapt to changes.

Turian biotics have between 65% and 80% of their plating soaked in eezo. This doesn't pass down to their children in any way, and biotic ability in turians is also somewhat of a social stigma. Turian biotics are not allowed to function in society or privately and must register as cabal members, for life. As a result, many turian biotics who do not wish to serve the government become criminals, rebels, or worse.

Turians require a higher amount of food to eat, but more importantly, require almost five times as much water, as their plating requires a higher level of cooling due to the eezo. Especially when in heavy armor, biotic turians have a tendency to overheat. Most prefer loose robes or partial armor as a result, further setting them off from other turians.

Turian biotics come disproportionally from the Valachan and Throcian districts of Palaven, near Lake Vidyana. Long believed to be haunted, turian science now knows that an eezo-laced meteor struck the region some 90,000 years ago, lacing the ground water table with eezo residue. Almost all the residents in the region have minor exposure , but for still unknown reasons, some turian youngsters absorb eezo rapidly rather than having it simply filter out. This makes the source of turian biotics completely random, and the Hierarchy has spent vast sums working on a surgical procedure. Thus far, surgically produced biotics are only half the strength or less of natural biotics, and the procedure has a 70% mortality rate.

Turian bio-amps are implanted under the plates of the torso in the back.

* * *

**Batarians: **

Batarian biotics are produced through surgical infusion of eezo-laced blood plasma into the body of mature batarians who have a natural mutation. Despite the simplicity of the batarian nervous system, batarians can produce extremely powerful biotics through this procedure.

The procedure requires a batarian with a mutated glandular condition called Girifon's Disease. The mutation causes batarian nervous systems to expand beyond their normal state, resulting in dozens and dozens of nerve bundles building up along the nervous pathways. Untreated, the nervous system tends towards cancerous. The procedure that infuses the batarian with eezo kills a large part of the nervous system, particularly some of the surface nerves. In a 'normal' batarian, so much nerve tissue would be lost that the batarian would no doubt die, but the enhanced nerves of a batarian with Girifon's means it roughly balances out. The fact that, due to this, most batarian biotics can't feel much pain at all is a bonus to the Hegemony.

The infused eezo clusters along the nerves, and over time the power of the eezo destroys the nervous system. Over time, and with use, the eezo pulses through the nerves wear away at the sheathing. Once it's gone, eezo rapidly breaks down the nerves themselves, and multiple nervous system cancers erupt all over the body. The time this takes depends on how much eezo is pumped into the subject in the first place.

Batarian biotics can be infused in one of three strengths – honored, fated, and Glorious. Honored batarians can expect to live another 30 years after the procedure, fated 20, and Glorious perhaps 2 or 3. Glorious batarian biotics are pumped so full of eezo their eyes sometimes glow, and can express biotic power surpassing even an asari commando matriarch in some cases. They become living weapons, so strong they sometimes can't control the dark energy and literally detonate.

Batarian biotic ability is, thus, a death sentence. But the Hegemony has made these volunteers out to be heroes – they are feted, given plush accommodations, positions in the SIU, and every luxury. The cynical outcome of this, in the miserable masses of the Hegemony, is there is no shortage of batarians offering themselves up for service.

The mutation that confers Girifon's disease was once natural – eight years ago, batarian scientists managed to create a retro-viral agent that would give the mutation to any batarian. As such, the Hegemony can create biotics at will and does so with worrying regularity. While the majority of them are only Honored and thus fairly weak, even a handful of Glorious batarian biotics can be a threat.

As with other biotics, batarians require additional food intake and more rest. They are also required to take several anti-rejection drugs and regular eezo infusions to maintain their power – otherwise it begins to fade and eventually toxicity issues will kill the biotic if not treated. This limits their long-term field usage.

Batarian bio-amps are implanted in the folds of the skull near the neck.

* * *

**Krogan:**

Krogan biotics are extremely rare. In the time before the genophage, they were more common, but in modern times there are less than three thousand of them across the entire race. Krogan biotics are unique in that they come in two forms – battlemasters and warlords.

The krogan battlemaster is the 'natural' form of the biotic. Tuchanka's wild diversity was further enhanced (or corrupted) by the pollution from several asteroids laced with element zero that struck the planet in the Wargha valley system some ten thousand years prior to the salarian uplift. The valley systems rivers fed the large krogan cities there until the nuclear war, and krogan from the area absorbed eezo naturally. Krogan warlords were an adaptation created by salarian scientists during the uplift, and is a manual procedure that mimics the natural process undergone by battlemasters.

Krogan bodily functions incorporate both highly regenerative totipotent stem cells sourced in krogan bone marrow as well as multiple redundant systems. As such, eezo contaminants that would overwhelm lesser living beings are an irritation to krogan. Indeed, almost 80% of all krogan have eezo levels in their body on par with other races biotics, which is why most biotic attacks do not perform as well against krogan, as they have adapted to this by forming an unconscious and weak mass effect field that helps to nullify biotics.

For krogan battlemasters , however, eezo levels spike higher. Krogan absorb eezo through their skin during childhood and puberty. These eezo contaminants are filtered, like all poisons, through the hump on the krogan's back and through six sets of kidney-analogue organs. In most krogan the eezo is filtered from the system, with only minute amounts accreted over time. Battlemasters have higher than normal amounts of absorption into hump tissues and kidney tissues – for reasons that are unknown at this time. (Krogan pursuit of biology is haphazard at best). What is known is that the traits that allow a krogan to become biotic are definitely hereditary.

Eezo that builds in the hump diffuses towards the nerve-packed fatty lining of the hump 'core', an area that regulates water retention and serves as a secondary motor-control center. Eezo in the kidneys flows through a subsystem of capillary-vessels that go throughout the krogan form to absorb and filter poisons from the blood. The nervous system of a krogan is wrapped around this system, and when wounds occur the area is flooded with fluids that retard infection and speed regeneration. As a result, the nervous system of a krogan is almost exposed in it's full entirety to eezo, contributing to the horrific level of raw power krogan biotics wield.

This process takes a great deal of time – almost a full century – and as a result of the high mortality rates on Tuchanka (and the relatively low birth rate) krogan biotics are rare. Furthermore, the process retards bone growth in early years – eezo damages the nerves, which are constantly replaced by the bone marrow stem cells, and this forced constant replacement over centuries weakens bone and slows overall regeneration. It can take up to three hundred years for the krogan body to finally 'adapt fully' to the eezo in the body and cease this over-regeneration of nerves.

The warlord process is similar, but relies on IV injections of eezo and hormone slurry, combined with traumatic injuries to nervous areas and the hump. The resulting forced regeneration, along with the growth hormone, forces the krogan body to adapt and incorporate eezo-contaminants into the repaired nervous system. Since the repairs are completed by the end of the process, there is no need for long waits and the process can be performed on any krogan. However, there is a high chance of rejection, leading to the nervous system literally decaying and killing the krogan within weeks. Furthermore, since the kidneys are not also laced with eezo, the warlord tends to have less biotic strength.

Krogan biotic ability is called the 'soulgrip' and has religious significance among the krogan, although this varies from clan to clan and from shaman to shaman. The cultural difference between battlemasters and warlords are subtle to non-krogan. A battlemaster can be a non-biotic, but all natural biotics are battlemasters. They are clan leaders and tend to lead the krogan in times of war. Warlords, on the other hand, are seen as living weapons. They are not as respected as a battlemaster, but only krogan warlords are given the honor of leading multiple clans into battle, as warlords usually live only for the fight and not for what passes as krogan politics.

Krogan biotics eat and drink a great deal more than other krogan, due to the stress of biotic use, but only when they've exerted themselves. A krogan's natural resistances and regenerative factors means they do not suffer biotic degenerative diseases or other failures of the nervous system. Krogan battlemasters are immune to pulse suppressors and phase inhibitors, and laugh off almost all anti-biotic drugs. Warlords, on the other hand, due to the lesser integration of eezo in their bodies, are vulnerable to such tactics.

Krogan bio-amps are worn on the bare skin of the arm, in an armored bracelet. Many krogan built entire armored gauntlets around their bio-amps Some krogan wear the bio-amp in a torc around the neck instead.

* * *

**Salarians: **

Salarian biotics are , unsurprisingly, a development engineered by salarian science and brought into being by the STG. Salarians had no early exposures to eezo, and it was only after examinations of asari biotic talent that the salarians decided they needed some of their own.

Unfortunately, salarian biology is both resistant to eezo contamination and vulnerable to metabolic imbalances due to their already high metabolic state. Salarian neural complexity is very high and alterations to it tend to either cause paralysis or death.

The salarian approach to creating a biotic was injections just prior to hatching and through the first four years of life. Each phase injected minute amounts of eezo, encased in restriction-enzyme jacketed protein capsules. These targeted Salarian DNA in precise sections, disrupting neural growth. Combined with a form of adaptive retro-viral therapy, the process overlaid the natural nervous system with force-grown , eezo laced nerves.

As a result, salarian biotics are very rare. The cost to produce a single biotic ranges in the low millions of credits per egg, and it often takes hundreds of eggs to produce a single viable offspring. Even when hatched, the young biotic has to be fed a diet of anti-rejection drugs, enhanced with system-monitoring cyberware to adjust hormone levels and laced with nanotech repair drones to stop cancerous nodules form forming around the artificial nervous system.

The artificially grown nerves collect eezo at nerve "bundle points", in the armpits, chest, and groin. These function similar to human eezo nodes, and have a similar size. Overlaying the secondary nervous system onto the primary means a salarian biotic has exquisite neuromuscular control, and renders them capable of feats of impossible speed and coordination. Many biotics implant themselves with further cyberware to augment their biotic ability.

Due to the delicate nature of this growth, the salarian biotic methodology relies on hypnotic education and an almost mystical set of meditations and mind-clearing exercises. While the salarian method produces skilled biotics, they are nuanced, not powerful. The end result of the process is a salarian with an entire nervous system packed with eezo, but delicate adjustments are required to ensure the electrical manipulations that allow biotic control don't disrupt the normal nervous system.

Salarian biotics are emaciated looking, even for salarians, and extremely twitchy. Eezo tends to channel from the nerves into the eyes, giving them a faint blue glow that is extremely unnerving to face. Due to the subtle and complicated nature of the nervous system, Salarian biotics cannot function when highly agitated, requiring calm and focus to perform.

The demands of a secondary nervous system not only drive a salarian to eat more, but put a drain on their heart, lungs, and other systems, shortening their already brief lives to perhaps 30 years. Salarian biotics are thus seen as highly expensive limited time assets, and are almost never risked in open battle, aiding STG units with a bewildering array of support biotics.

Salarian bio-amps are implanted in a pair, in the armpits, near the main bundle points.

* * *

**Volus: **

Volus biotics are a creation of the Vol Protectorate's VDF. Volus expressed a handful of biotics during their history, mostly from eezo pollution in their shipbuilding factories. The use of proper robotic assembly lines, however, eliminated this factor, and until twenty years ago the volus had forgotten about the few biotics that had arisen in their race.

The VDF, however, in looking for ways to enhance it's soldiers, had not forgotten. It took records, research and even autopsy records from the older days and began a crash program designed to engineer biotic abilities in their kind.

The resulting experiments were beyond the volus's expectations. Volus biotics are created by simple injections of eezo-laced materials (usually protein matter mixed with nervous stem cells) into the volus spinal column. The volus nervous system is utterly unlike the systems of other races – it is a mix of conductive fluids and special "nerve nodes" that act as nervous switching stations.

As a result, the volus nervous system can hold and generate higher electrical charges than other races, and can be easily modified by eezo injections. The injections in the spine allow eezo to gather naturally in the nerve nodes, where it binds to the nervous structure.

Volus VDF recruits that meet a series of physical requirements are injected, and the process takes around a year to fully enter the nervous system and begin affecting the volus. Since eezo is suspended in the liquid of the nervous system, it means a heavily wounded volus can lose strength. Then again, a heavily wounded volus is almost certain to be dead from suit ruptures anyway, thus the drawback is not that great.

The volus physiology is not as adversely affected by eezo as most races are, and the nervous system – being little more than electroconductive fluids attached to proto-nerve endings – cannot degrade over time, meaning that volus lose very little of their power over time as they age.

Volus already require a great deal of food due to the higher energy requirements to operate in higher gravity environments, but volus biotics require additional intake as well. Most volus biotics require regular injections of various drugs to assist in regulating eezo in their system and preventing it from filtering out of the nervous system and into other tissues.

Volus bio-amps are implanted in the neck, and are not designed for removal.

* * *

**Drell: **

Drell, much like humans, discovered their biotic potential by accidents. During their transference to the hanar home world, fleeing the destruction of their own, several thousand drell were heavily eezo poisoned by an engine malfunction on one of the transports.

There was a high mortality rate, but most survived. When the drell women became pregnant later in life they discovered that their offspring were biotic. These mothers discovered that any children they had expressed biotics, and were given some level of religious mania by some drell, convinced their gods had given them this gift to aid them in service to the hanar. Regardless, the Drell Compact sees this as a valuable asset, and has cold-bloodedly continued to expose volunteer females to eezo dust.

Once exposed, a drell female either survives or doesn't, based on their health and a number of other genetic factors. Survivors incorporate the eezo contaminants in the yakadi nodes, a part of the drell immune system. The nodes swell and become heavily inflamed, and necrotic pus from them enters the bloodstream of the drell in question. This can also kill the female, but if it doesn't , this eezo laced pus ends up contaminating the egg sacs of the female.

A fertilized egg of a drell woman so contaminated is itself doused in eezo, which overwhelms the forming yakadi nodes of the infant. As with most fetal organisms, stem cells end up making adaptations to the presence of eezo in the body – in the case of a drell, making additional yakadi nodes to disperse the contaminants. The nodes end up swelling slightly, but do not decay over time like those of a drell primary victim.

Once born, as the drell grows, the electromagnetic field of these nodes induces nerve growth towards them, ending up wrapping them in bundles of nerve endings, linking the entire drell nervous system to the nodes. Drell discover the power at around age nine or ten, as the nervous system finishes growing, and from then on can use their biotics as normal.

Drell have various attitudes towards biotics. The mothers of biotic children rarely survive for more than a decade after contamination, and in the modern era, most are volunteers. The women in question will strive to have as many children as possible prior to death, but most obvious end up as orphans and wards of the Compact, raised in special schools and gifted to influential hanar as living weapons.

Drell biotics are built around stealth, evasive action, and skill, not sheer power. Most drell biotics are tightly muscled and graceful, and use their biotics to support their other skill sets.

Drell are very resistant to anti-biotic drugs, but vulnerable to phase disruptor items. The bio-amp they wear is against the skin, usually in a belt worn near the waist, with the amp itself near the base of the spine.

* * *

**Asari:**

Thessia is a world with massive eezo contamination, and the asari have evolved around this, or have been altered to fit. The asari, unlike all other species, are born with biotics.. A series of semi-permeable membranes in the area behind the jaw and in the lower back hold a slurry of protein, glucatonic suspensions, and eezo, circulated throughout the body in a secondary distribution system closely following the main arteries.

Circulation of this mix is achieved through involuntary muscle contractions , and this eezo system is interlaced directly with both the asari's multitwined nervous system and a portion of the brain that acts much like an electric eels electrogenesis organs. This allows the asari nervous system to carry far higher voltages and charges than any other race, and provides a weak bio-electrical mass field by itself in combination with the body's natural eezo.

As a result, asari are fully capable of using powerful biotic attacks without any form of neural amplifier. Most wear a neural amp, against the skin, not surgical like that of humans, but this is mostly convenience and for focus and discrimination, not raw power.

Asari absorb eezo and are able to sustain electrical charge at varying rates.

Nullifying asari biotics is not hard, compared with some other races. Pulse disruptor fields break up their innate bio-electrical field, and phase dissipation devices make it impossible for them to form a real mass effect field. Even so, one must not underestimate their power.

* * *

**Quarians, elcor, hanar, and vorcha:** Prior to the Morning War, quarian biotics were on par with turians, but since then their habit of sterile environments and sealed suits has meant almost no quarians have been exposed to eezo. Elcor react extremely poorly to eezo, and to date, no elcor has survived eezo exposure to demonstrate biotics. Hanar and vorcha do not form eezo concentrations – hanar expulse them through uncontrolled immune reactions, vorcha adapt to encyst and neutralize them. None of these races have demonstrated any biotic potential in the past fifty years.

**Geth: **Geth are machines. In theory, if their electro-neural nets were complex enough, they could manipulate such forces, but thus far geth do not appear to be willing to experiment with such.

* * *

**Animals: **some native fauna on eezo-corrupted planets have demonstrated simple biotic abilities. Research is ongoing, but krogan are known to use such animals as warbeasts. There have been instances of biotic varren on Tuchanka, some fish and wildlife on Thessia, and a wide variety of monsters on ruined garden worlds.


	2. Chapter 2 - Biotic Principles

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

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**Biotic Power Levels:**

While there is no standard among all races, the Citadel Council , when describing laws regulating biotics, recognizes seven broad categories of power level. Power level has nothing to do with the power of an individual biotic, but the over-all threat capacity of the biotics a race produces.

Biotics are classed as 'standard biotics' or 'specialist biotics'. The difference is usually in training, a specialist biotic for humans would be a Vanguard, for asari a Commando, for Drell an Ascended Assassin. For the purposes of this paper, these categories can be described as follows:

I: Non-biotics – this includes anyone exposed but not bio-amped.

II: Most humans, turians, Honored batarians, and volus.

III: Most krogan, drell, Fated batarians and salarians.

IV: Most asari. Human, batarian and volus biotic specialists.

V: Turian, krogan and salarian biotic specialists. Rare volus experimental specialists.

VI: Asari and drell biotic specialists, a few human experimental specialists.

VII: Asari Matriarchs or Priestesses, blood-rage krogan specialists, batarian glorious specialists

Power levels define how dangerous a given biotic group is. Asari matriarchs, for example, are uniformly skilled, extremely powerful, with hundreds of years of experience. Even untrained, they are more than a match for even skilled biotics, simply due to the sheer level of power they can draw on.

In any given match up between biotics, the above table gives a rough guide as to how results will turn out. Some races can increase in power over time, others get weaker.

**Humans, turians, batarians and volus :** these races have relatively simplistic neural and nervous systems and very low tolerance for eezo, and as such as have the weakest baseline abilities. Turians can take a larger amount of neural-sheath affliction than the rest, resulting in them spiking higher with training and equipment. Eezo is always toxic, but high enough concentrations cause degenerative brain lesions in humans. Typically speaking, such races do not grow in power during their lives after training is completed.

**Krogan, drell, and salarians: **Due to a variety of factors, these three races spike higher on the scale than humans , turians, or volus. Krogan regeneration , drell vakadi nodes, and salarian neural complexity each allow the specific race to maintain higher levels of eezo tolerance and , therefore, larger eezo accumulations. These races have modest increases in power as they age, due to their bodies allowing additional eezo to build up.

**Asari **are naturally biotic, and as they age on Thessia, their bodies absorb ever more eezo. Eezo is not toxic to asari due to evolutionary changes and Prothean alteration, and as such asari continue to grow in biotic power as they get older. Asari matriarchs are terrifying even untrained, with more than sixty times the eezo capacity of a human.

* * *

**Force, Discrimination, Surge and Reserve: **There are so many possible biotic powers that clearly defining every one is too difficult. Instead, the Systems Alliance uses a four-point scale borrowed from the asari to define the affective abilities that modify such. Every biotic and biotic power can be evaluated on a graph of differing forces. Various races do better or worse at certain aspects of biotics due to natural or cultural factors.

**Force: **a measure of sheer energy regardless of time span. The more force an ability has, the more newtons result from it's application. Force is augmented by emotional states, particularly anger, rage, and fear. Force sits in diametrical opposition to discrimination, as the more force is put into an attack, the less discrimination is possible except for the most talented biotics. Force based attacks are usually very simplistic, and examples are throw, pull, and shear. Krogan tend to refer to this as "fire" and proclaim that it's highest calling is in rage.

**Discrimination: **The finesse and fine control of a particular attack. The more intricate the biotic maneuver is, and the more exotic the forces, the less the sheer power of the attack matters and the more correct execution does. A singularity does not differ much from a powerful or a weak biotic, but one who has more control can produce a longer-lasting and more damaging spin to the singularity. Discrimination is augmented by calm, clear focused thinking, and meditation. It sits in opposition to both Force and Surge, as rapid expulsion of power is no more precise than massive expulsion of power. The asari feel discrimination is perhaps the most important of biotic traits, calling this the asnari, or "balance'.

**Surge: **Surge is the measure of how much power can be brought to bear in a short time. Humans mockingly refer to it as "DPS", a term from their entertainment, but the concept is not far off. Any biotic can focus power, but surge can allow extremely powerful effects instantly. Surge is augmented by direct targets with concrete outlines. It sits in weak opposition to Discrimination, as it is difficult to throw around power quickly and yet with finesse.

**Reserve:** The measure of how long biotic efforts can be sustained, reserve is in effect the stamina of a given biotic's ability to channel dark energy. This is limited by biology, by the biotic's current physical state, by what powers they use, etc. A hungry, wounded, and tired biotic will not have the same reserve as a well rested, well fed and calm one. Reserve sits in weak opposition to Surge, although the inverse is not true – every powerful attack saps reserve, but having high reserves does not mean a biotic is powerful, just that they can last a long time.

* * *

These four foci determine the entire outlook of each race on biotic usage.

Humans have high force and very poor discrimination, with good surge and staggeringly high reserve. They focus mostly on biotics that have heavy, direct impacts, and the primary limit of their biotics is how well fed and rested they are. They can last a long time in battle, second only to asari, but their low discrimination means they cannot practice many advanced techniques or are poor at them.

Turians have average force, but extremely high discrimination, surge, and reserve. They are balanced all around, and can perform at high levels of output for a long time. Turians focus on attacks that allow for other turian forces to take advantage of a weakness. While they can last a long time, they are not as enduring as humans or asari, and their primary limit is fairly fixed regardless of how well rested or fed they are. This means fresh turian biotics are not more dangerous than tired ones, but it also means even badly stressed and under-fed biotics can be dangerous.

Salarian biotics have low force, extremely high discrimination, fairly low surge and below average reserve. Despite their seeming weakness, salarian biotics specialize in low power exotic forms of biotics well suited to their natural limits. Salarian biotics rarely push themselves, using their biotics only at the perfect moment, and thus their lower reserve does not usually come into play. While no match for stronger biotics one-on-one, when combined with salarian stealth concepts and combined arms tactics, they can be devastating. Salarian biotic power is limited by not only how well-fed the salarian is, but meditation and calm to focus – an unfocused biotic is too weak to do much of anything.

Krogan biotics (as can be imagined) have staggeringly high force levels, almost no discrimination, very high surge, and high reserve. Krogan biotics are strong, simple, and fast. They never bother with higher-order biotic manipulations, and are poorly suited to them, but a krogan barrier can stop a tank gun, and a krogan throw can topple a six story building. Driven by the blood rage, krogan biotics can achieve heights of power even asari matriarchs can only dream of , but the blood rage destroys a krogan's reserves rapidly, leaving him drained and exhausted. Krogan , being enduring and with multiple redundant systems, rarely if ever tire enough to affect their biotics.

Drell have below average force, very high discrimination, very high surge, but very low reserve. The drell biotic uses his powers mostly as a killing tool – a very quick use, targeted precisely, and instantly inflicted. Their discrimination and surge allow them to quickly use devastating , complicated forms that challenge even turians, but they have such low biotic stamina that they rarely if ever use more than four or five biotic attacks in a given fight. Due to this low stamina, their physical condition – rest, food, even emotional state – do not do much to enhance a drell but can definitely worsen his performance.

Batarians of the honored and fated classes have high force and average discrimination, surge, and reserve, making them very balanced and solid. The super-augmented Glorious biotics, however, have very high force, almost no discrimination, the highest known surge of any race, and high reserves. No other biotic can push out power as rapidly as a Glorious batarian, with examples including over 60,000 newtons of force in less than 10 seconds not being unusual. The drawback to this is the power is almost uncontrollable – there is literally no discrimination at all, and occasionally the sheer power blows up on the biotic and turns him into a kinetically-shredded smear. The sheer power of Glorious batarians means they usually die before food becomes an issue , but the lesser batarians are roughly on par with turians with their endurance.

Volus have average force and discrimination, but very high surge and reserve. The rare volus biotics prefer higher-order biotics rather than getting up-close with much bigger and stronger enemies. As such, they can throw out rapid attacks for a surprisingly long amount of time before they tire. As with humans, they need a great deal of food and rest to be the most effective.

Asari can have wildly varying levels of force and reserve , unlike the other races, but these grow as they age. On average, most asari have average force, discrimination, and surge, with a high reserve. By middle age, all of these are very high, and a matriarch has more sheer raw force and reserve than any other biotic race, and discrimination that is beyond the reach of even the most calm salarian. However, many matriarchs have problems with surge, as they tend towards more complex uses of biotics. Out of all of the races, asari have the most raw power and the highest caloric needs. A starving asari is no threat.

Numeric Values: on a scale of 1 to 10, for ease of reference in comparative power levels.

Humans: Force 7, Discrimination 3, Surge 6 , Reserve 9

Turians: Force 5, Discrimination 8, Surge 7 , Reserve 7

Salarian: Force 2, Discrimination 9, Surge 4 , Reserve 4

Krogan: Force 9, Discrimination 1, Surge 8 , Reserve 8

Drell: Force 4, Discrimination 7, Surge 8 , Reserve 2

Batarian: Force 6, Discrimination 6, Surge 5 , Reserve 5

Batarian (Glorious): Force 8, Discrimination 2, Surge 10 , Reserve 8

Volus : Force 4, Discrimination 5, Surge 8 , Reserve 8

Asari : Force 9, Discrimination 10, Surge 5 , Reserve 10

* * *

**The Nature of Biotics : Powersets**

Biotic control can be broken out into five sets of abilities.

The first is the control of basic kinetic forces on the gross physical level, via the generation of inertia. Typically speaking, any biotic of any power level can access these. Kinetics is the sort of 'common theme' that all biotic races discover early in their experimentation with biotics. These techniques incorporate (or can be incorporated) into other power sets with little difficulty. While grasping basic kinetics is easy, mastery is hard. The most basic of biotic abilities, the humble pull, is often the most flexible attack a biotic has. Basic kinetics is the least demanding of the paths in terms of being able to perform the attacks, but all of the uses tend to be wasteful of strength.

Molecular Manipulation is the second tier of biotics. It lends itself well to discrimination-type calmness, and it utilizes the ability of biotics to break bonds at the strong nuclear level. Such techniques mesh well with some dimensional abilities, but not kinetic or gravitic effects. Molecular manipulation is the specialty of salarians, due to their ability to rapidly calculate the correct forces, but drell are good at it too. These are invocations, difficult to learn but once mastered easy to use.

Gravitic Control is the ability to alter gravitational forces on the fly, and the ability to nullify or reverse the kinetic and inertial energies associated with them. This requires a great deal of focus AND force, and is not particularly forgiving of mistakes, most of which tend to crush the user. It is also very tiring, meaning that it is difficult to maintain for long periods of time without rest. It's effects are a mix of combative and utilitarian. Asari are masters of this form, and most turians practice it extensively.

Dimensional Control was pioneered by the asari, but requires a great deal of power to perform correctly. It affects the very nature of matter and mass effect field generation, and focuses most on movement. It's effects are almost entirely combative in nature. Humans have made the largest strides in this field of biotics, but the most brutal attacks were the krogan's idea.

High Order Energy Manipulation is the use of biotics to tweak particle physics and energy states in materials. This requires a large, upfront amount of biotic energy, and these techniques requires surge to pull off effectively. Devastating and flashy, batarians have made this style their signature, but it's ability to negate other energy forces means the volus also like it.

* * *

**The Nature of Biotics : It's powers and limits**

At it's core, all biotic abilities rely on the body's electrical field to charge the eezo within that body, creating a mass effect field. Even the weakest biotic, without an amp, can do this. The field ionizes the air, creating a blue coronal glow around the user that brightens to brilliant white with enough energy thrown into it.

Biotics is neither magic, nor mind reading, nor mystical and mythological powers such as turian sagas of shathan, fictional salarian 'lighting power', or human 'Jedi force powers'. These things are merely stories, and while there may be some similarities between what biotics can do and these things can do, that is solely due to biotics being used to mimic their effects.

A biotic is a living engine, burning energy to power their bio-electrical field, and using either natural shifts in electrical control or a computer-controlled amp to shift these field to manipulate generated mass effect fields of varying strengths. Anything a mass effect field cannot do, a biotic cannot do. They cannot stop fire, although they can turn aside plasma. They cannot affect anything in deep space or without a gravity field, although they can work and amplify even the slightest amount of gravity. The more complex the evocation becomes, the more mass effect fields they have to juggle and the more likely they are to fail.

A biotic has four weaknesses. First, they require more food and sometimes other supplements for them to power their assaults. A biotic without enough nutrients to power their electrical system will either collapse or, if they force out more biotic assaults, even die. Supply lines are thus of importance to biotics, as their ammunition is literally food.

Second, a biotic can only react to what he or she can perceive and protect against. A biotic unaware of danger can be killed by a knife , a sniper bullet, or a land mind just as easily as any other sentient. And even in battle, while dangerous, they are not omnipotent, if they can be distracted at the appropriate moment. Few biotics can focus on a close-up threat while maintaining vigilance against long range threats.

Third, biotics are not invincible. As long as they can maintain their barrier, kinetic and plasma weapons fire, any rail gun fire, gasses, contact poisons, liquids, shrapnel, and most explosions are worthless against them. While this is a significant portion of the modern arsenal, it is not all of it. Melee attacks cannot be fully blocked, nor can laser fire or real old fashioned flames. Explosions can't crack their barrier, but you can blow up the building they're standing on. Enough firepower will crack any barrier with time, but sustained fire without giving the biotic a chance to rest will sap their strength quickly.

Most importantly, biotics is a balancing act. When arrayed against one kind of foe with one kind of weapon, a biotic can usually slaughter them. When fighting foes that use a multitude of weapons,

attacks, angles, and plans, the biotic can be overwhelmed.

* * *

**The Nature of Biotics : Attributes **

Those powers which are amplified by emotional loss of control and determination are often poorly defined blasts of raw energy. Nova, for example, is believed to be the user of the charge shaping the mass tunnel on exit and discharging raw biotic force into this shape.

Generally speaking, the more simple a power, the easier it is to augment it's strength with hate, rage, or fear. More complicated abilities require more focus and more control over the mass effect fields to be effective, while the most complicated abilities can't even be reliably used in combat.

That being said, there are a few other attributes that affect a biotic's ability to perform. Nervous system strength, the amperage the body can handle, the amount of eezo within the body – these all have effects on the final result of any biotic use. Thus, one cannot always pigeonhole people neatly into the categories presented. Subject Zero, for example, had twice the number of nodes a normal human did, which is why she could perform on near-matriarch level. Asari priestesses spend time ritually submerged into eezo-soaked ocean ponds on Thessia to enhance their biotics, as do many families of the Thirty.

The most important aspect of a biotic, however, will always be intellect. A smart biotic who uses their powers effectively will always beat a more powerful biotic who flings around power like a drunk.

* * *

**The Nature of Biotics : Surge limits and suppressive devices**

After a biotic attack, the body is temporarily drained of bio-electrical energy. A being usually has quite a bit of bio-electrical energy in their body, and the amp attempts to use it effectively, but every biotic use takes a little more out of the user. Most biotics must rest between strong uses of their power, and rarely like firing electrical impulses along the same nerves over and over, as they grow raw and painful.

Asari call this the tide rebound, while humans call it a 'cool-down'. No matter the name, it is also a key weakness with biotics. No matter how practiced and powerful the user, eventually they must stop to regather their electrical charge and power the eezo within them.

This pause can be increased or made permanent by disrupting the users mass effect field. This is done in one of three ways: the use of pulse suppressors, phase inhibitors, or ferromagnetic protein injections.

Pulse suppressors are tiny mass effect generators set to pulse out a field that resonates on a different charge than that of most biotics. It is akin to someone scraping their nails on a blackboard when you're trying to tune an instrument. It doesn't make it impossible to use biotics, but the user has to overcome the jamming and it wastes energy and time to do so. A pulse suppressor can be draped over the user and will either shut them down completely if they can't adapt, or weaken them if they can. Since it's usually external, they can be removed, although some high security prisons have cells for biotics that are basically super-powerful and scaled up versions.

Phase inhibitors, on the other hand, are powerful electromagnets that prevent eezo from charging properly when in contact with an electrical field, preventing a mass effect field from being generated in the first place. Most asari monasteries for the ardat-yakshi incorporate these into the outer walls and many of the floors. They can be slotted into a slug and shot into a biotic target, or , like a pulse suppressor, placed directly on a person.

Finally, there is a large range of drugs that cause magnetic iron to bind to the target's electrical system, permanently making the electrical discharges of the nerves go haywire. This pretty much destroys a target's ability to use biotics in a meaningful manner. Cerberus has also created some drugs that can disrupt nerve function and mimic this effect that can be permanent or temporary in nature.

* * *

**The Nature of Biotics : Bio Amps**

Bio-amps are electrical field manipulators, sometimes using monopole magnetic fields, sometimes using electrostatic forces, and rarely relying on tiny eezo powered electrokinetic shift devices. All of them have two things in common: they provide an interface for a biotic to consciously shift the direction, charge and amperage of their bioelectrical field, and they can store and generate field alterations to produce specific effects.

There are three rough categories of bio-amp, as mentioned earlier: civilian, military, and specialist. Civilian bio-amps are heavily locked down to limit what the user can do. Most civilian bio-amps are used in mining, construction, and in search & rescue work. Civilian amps are, by Citadel law, limited to produce basic kinetic effects only. Miners with a license can use warp fields or flay to break up rocks, while a few construction types have access to warp for large amounts of demolitions work. A civilian bio-amp is not designed for battle in any event, and it is slow to react, limited in range, and will not accept additional programming.

That being said, most races have a criminal element, and 'hacked' and 'overclocked' amps are common on the black market. Most amps require surgery to install, but most civilian surgeons do not have the training to perform such. Surgically implanting black-market amps is tricky for many races, so they end up implanting them along a major nervous system line. This sort of jury-rig does not allow the amp to have all the power it should, but even a half-powered warp field is devastating to mere police in riot gear.

Military amps are issued only to the military. Each one is tagged with command codes that allow it to be deactivated, and each one is kept in two pieces until it is ready for surgical installation or purchase (for those races who use worn rather than installed amps). Either way, the amp has encryption software that is keyed to a user's DNA or RNA, and will not respond if not used by that person. Military amps have adaptive VI software that tracks biotic effects and can help the user recreate a particular biotic effect. Most military amps have certain biotic abilities 'pre-keyed', and a simplistic HUD interface to assist targeting.

Specialist amps are custom-crafted for the user and cannot be 'bought', only commissioned. Most custom amps are built from the ground up for a particular person and their biotic lineup, and have many custom features. These can take on outrageous proportions – The Shadow Broker's lieutenant, Tetrimus, had one that lined his shoulder and forearm, and was connected to his spine and brain through cybernetics. Matriarch Lidanya had one built into her sword, and the salarian biotic Silence had his eyes interfaced with a biotic installation, allowing him to throw warp-fire as he glanced about.

For years, the basic rating of amps was done by the asari method, the k'Ell, a measure of the force the amp could produce. Human biotics ended up mimicking this with their L ratings, and their work in developing standardized software for biotics has ended up with amps being measured by software and hardware.

Software all uses the L rating. The current L specification in ME1 was L3.7, by ME2 it was L5.2, and by ME3 it was L5.9. L releases are coordinated between the Councils of Thessia (Armali and Serrice), the Salarian Institute of the Mind, the Turian Convocation of Cabals, and the Alliance Academy of Biotics. These four groups work with the Citadel council to standardize and streamline the basic control architectures , systems, and programming code within all bio-amps, as well as increase security. The software also has programs ensuring (based on the input from the races) what biotics will not be uploaded to be mimicked by the user. For example, human Vanguard Biotic CQB C7 soldiers must learn and be able to perform the Nova on their own, their bio-amp won't record such.

Hardware varies by race. Humans have L1 through L5 hardware, turians have smoke, dust, rain, and sky claws, asari name theirs by phases of their moon, etc. The hardware advances pretty quickly, attempting to balance the time it takes to manipulate a field with the strength generated.


	3. Chapter 3 - Powers Compendium

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

* * *

**The Catalog of Known Abilities:**

This is in no way a listing of all known biotics, much less all possible biotics. But it does describe what most biotics in the ME Premiseverse are like , which expands on what is possible in the game. For example, some of the biotics in ME3 are not listed, because they are mostly adaptations of what is on this list.

A biotic power listing starts with the name. If the race that created the power is known, that is listed in parenthesis. A description of the power follows. Some powers are limited to only one race, in that case that will be listed in the name of the power. For example, only humans can use the Nova.

* * *

**Basic Kinetics:**

Pull : Pull utilizes a direct kinetic transfer to force a target to be pulled closer. More advanced users often tweak the pull with a hint of lift, to make the target float helplessly. Pull can be used more directly, to snatch weapons out of hands, shut doors, or even jerk a melee weapon into another path. Pull is wasteful and tiresome , however, and it draws kinetic energy from the controller as well as ambient heat energy from the air – the finer the effect, the more difficult it is to maintain and perform.

Throw : the inverse of pull. It uses the same direct kinetic transfer, to shove a large inertial mass into a target and send them flying. While pull requires a lot of power, throw needs less, and control is more important to actually hit what you're hurling the energy at. Like an oversized biotic fist, the better the user is at controlling their electrical field , the more precise it can be.

Barrier: the barrier is the primary defense of any biotic. It creates a field of absolute inertial 'stillness' – like a giant cushion. Barriers can stop any other biotic or kinetic attack, and can lessen any attack that isn't pure energy. A flamethrower would completely bypass a barrier, but an explosion would not – the primary force of an explosion being compressed atmosphere. Barriers often interfere with kinetic shields, and either one or the other must be chosen.

Force: the common term given to using potential kinetic energy to weigh down the hands or feet for close quarters battle. A punch with fifty pounds of kinetic energy behind it at the last second is capable of launching a person across the room, a simple kick suddenly given three hundred pounds of impact can kill a person easily. Timing is difficult, too early and the weight works against you, too late and the impact is nullified.

Slam: a combination of pull and barrier, the slam uses a barrier field to provide crushing force with the pull directing the target into the ground. Where pull and throw are designed to toss or pull targets with direct kinetic energy, slam uses the barrier to crush bones and inflict significant damage to the target.

Aid: the use of biotics to boost a jump or leap. Biotically assisted jumps are difficult to execute properly, but also hard to defend against. Humans mockingly call these maneuvers 'jedi knighting', but such biotic acrobatics can make it difficult to keep up with (or evade) a determined biotic.

Impactor (Krogan): a variation of slam, but the krogan charges their own body with weight and uses a modified pull to bring the target to them, while they perform the usual krogan charge. The result is usually a pulped target. Impactor is gruesome to watch, as the krogan will often follow up on such an impact with a shotgun to the face.

Crush (Batarian): Designed to incapacitate slaves, the crush creates two 'plates' of raw kinetic energy that are sent scything in a closing arc at the enemies knees. The fields deform on impact, acting like two giant hands slamming the target between them. Since it does not actually anchor to the target at all, it must be anchored to nearby buildings or something else to pivot the kinetic action from. It usually ends up shattering the legs of the target, stunning them without killing. The crush is unique in that, unlike other basic kinetics, it can be triggered without a direct line of sight. The trigger is to whatever the field is linked to, so there is no need to target a foe directly, and it cannot be sensed until it has already begun.

* * *

**Molecular Manipulation:**

Warp: A warp field uses mass effect fields in multiple layers, shifting them back and forth across a target in broad bands. The result of dragging the mass fields through matter is to disrupt the very molecular structure of the object. Flesh melts, metal deforms, plastics melt, and energy fields drain all their energy trying to hold their structure. Warp is called biotic fire by some, and with good reason. A warp field can be cast over anything, but the smaller the area of effect, the more powerful.

Reave (asari) : Similar to warp in that it relies on multiple mass effect fields. Reave uses these fields to generate powerful electrical charges, which ground out into a target's nervous system, wracking them with agony and pain. The effect also sets up a weak electrical circuit between the target and the invoker, allowing the user to literally power their own biotics at the cost of the target's bio-electrical energy. This almost always disrupts nervous activity to the point where the target's involuntary nervous system shuts down. The electrical field that envelops the user, on the other hand, often triggers the body's natural healing mechanisms to higher efficiency.

Shear (Human) : Shear uses a pair of mass effect fields to literally snap the strong nuclear forces of a material, usually in a line. Used on metals and other durable materials, it destroys much of the tensile strength of the material, making steel shatter like glass and turning rocks to sand and dirt. On weaker materials, the effect is more gruesome – flesh falls to carbon dust when struck. Barrier fields can stop the effect entirely, but the stress on the barrier is severe and tends to drain a biotic rapidly. Shear can be projected as a line, sighted on a target, or as a field several square meters, useful when one needs to stop mass accelerated rounds.

Flay (batarian) : Probably the most disgusting and evil biotic invocation known, flay uses narrow, angled mass effect fields to peel layers off of a target. Used on living beings, it tends to violently rip off large sheets of skin, muscle and tear out yards of arteries and other organs, splitting them as it does so. There are non-violent uses for this sort of power , in mining and even agricultural harvesting, but few use it for those purposes.

Smear (Volus): Smear tugs at molecular bonds weakly in a large globular field. Different than warp or flay, smear focuses only on bonds between actual molecules , allowing their arrangement to weaken rather than tear or push them apart. It weakens without destroying, resulting in a curious smeared look that gives the power it's name. Smear's globular shape and lower power allows it to be spread across a truly titanic area, a reach only matched by the ultra-powerful Flare of the asari. A smear can ruin an attacking forces day – jamming weapons, causing bloodclots and strokes, warping finely calibrated weapons systems and disrupting robots.

Salvo (Turian): A series of shifts to molecular structures to create low-energy bolts of plasma, this power fires off several such bolts in a rapid pattern across a narrow cone. Straddling the line between mere molecular control and high energy manipulation, salvo is often used to pin down enemy biotics. The low-energy plasma is not that hot, but can still be lethal. It's true danger is that it carries a shell of ions and chaotic electrical charges that will wreak havoc on a barrier or a biotic's ability to control their mass effect field if they are hit by such a power.

* * *

**Gravitic Control:**

Singularity (asari) : once the signature of the asari, the singularity is just that – a tiny, artificial blackhole , crushing and warping anything in it's radius. It is so tiny that friction from air being sucked in is flashed to plasma, often searing those around it, and it can lift targets from their feet to dangle helplessly, much like a lift. Unlike lift, which must be anchored on a single target, a singularity is a sphere. Materials buckle and flow like water, beings are sucked in and crushed, even the strongest barriers twist and splinter under it's impact.

Orb (volus) : pioneered by the volus , this has entered more common usage among other biotic practitioners. A biotic orb is a tiny micro-singularity, barely held in check and tuned precisely to the user's own biotic field. It is tightly contained by the biotic field of the user, orbiting them and disrupting incoming biotics attacks with it's highly deranged biotic field. Upon release, the orb snaps out, already unstable, unfurling into a concussive blast of raging warp energies. Multiple orbs can orbit the user, each one disrupting incoming mass accelerator fire or throwing off melee assaults.

Tether (human) : one of the first solely human devised biotic methods, tether links gravitic forces to a target, slowing it's movement and making the use of weapons difficult by amplification of the pull of gravity on the target. Simple in application, it's very difficult to maintain against other biotics for the simple reason that it ties directly into the mass of the target, and the biotic can often use their own mass effect fields to nullify it. On the other hand, against non-biotics, it's very effective, as even large motorized vehicles can be tugged to a stop and aircraft plucked from the sky.

Lift (salarian) : Lift lessens the gravity on a target, making it float helplessly in air. The lift can affect any single person or object, and is often used with a piece of debris to form a makeshift elevator. Lift's true danger, however, is that kinetic energy is not lessened by this move. A safe lifted to 500 feet in the air, when that lift is released, will fall with all it's normal kinetic energy intact.

Wall (asari) : a combination of barrier with using gravity to compress the air forms a super-strong barrier field that can repel almost any solid objects. This requires titanic levels of biotic strength to maintain, but it can block almost any attack, even from anti-armor weapons and very powerful explosives.

Lens (Salarian) : This is a strange power, something the salarians thought up. It uses biotic control of gravity to form a highly curved lens of air. The uses for this are twofold – it can act as a magnifier , letting the user see vast distances as if by a telescope, or to mimic a microscope if need be. But the brilliant salarian mind is seen not only in this scientific use, but in that, when combined with strong sunlight, it can generate a ray of light like a laser, strong enough to melt metal and flame flesh. In the first skirmishes between salarian biotics and the krogan, the krogan were unhappily surprised by this innovation, losing many warlords to slashes of lens-light.

Shockwave (Krogan) : it should come as no surprise that this freight-train of an ability was engineered by krogan warlords. A cascading series of gravitic pulses infused with crests of warp energy, what it does not crush or fling aside it tends to dissolve.

Blade (Asari) – a manipulation of force to form a cutting blade, which can be wielded or thrown. As the 'blade' is pure force, the sharpness can be nearly infinite. The signature of a War Priestess of Athame, only rarely is it taught to other asari, and almost never to aliens.

Soar: While this is known to other races, only the asari are usually strong enough to utilize it. One cannot fly with biotics, any more than one can pick themselves up off the ground by lifting their own belt. But one can use biotics to lower their own weight to almost nothing and fling themselves forward. Soar allows it's user to glide a short distance, usually downwards at an angle, and touch down gently. It is an advanced method of the lightening done by most biotics when they jump down. Soar can take it's user perhaps a few hundred yards before the gravitational detritus they build up must be discharged. When the user touches down, this gravitational field explodes outwards in a wave, crushing most things in it's path. This makes soar a favorite tactic of commandos who have to strike deep into enemy lines , clearing the area around them while bringing them closer their targets.

Net (Batarian ONLY) : Net is a secret technique , only available due to high power requirements to the Glorious super-biotics. The Net is an crosslinked 'net' of deep gravitational rifts, weaker forms of the singularity. Drawing in air in a rapid speed, they ionize it as it passes through these rifts, compressing the air into ionized plasma , resulting in a blazing hot mesh that pulls it's targets into it's confines. The net is a brutal death for anything it hits, as it can , with enough time, atomize it's targets due to the sheer force of the plasma-fires drawn through it's bindings. The Net can be defeated by evacuating the atmosphere, resulting in something akin to an extremely heavy slam instead. Even the asari were impressed with the sheer sophistry of the attack, given it's relatively humble nature since it relies solely on gravitic manipulation.

Slide (Drell): this modified form of lift creates gravity-lite tunnels and channels through which a user can move or slide with extreme speed and ease. Combined with aid, it allows stupendous feats of acrobatics and evasion, although it requires a great deal of discrimination to avoid gravitational fluctuations that would slow movement. Clever uses of these fields can also slow opponents even as the biotic moves too fast to counter.

* * *

**Dimensional Control:**

Charge : The kanquess, or moving-between, was one of the most difficult and highly guarded practices of the asari, until the salarians figured out a way to do it on their own. It is basically the creation of a tiny, short range mass effect tunnel, but with the displaced mass conveyed towards the focus point. The user can cross fairly large distances (more than 200 feet in one case) in the blink of an eye, emerging with a devastating burst of kinetic energy that sends foes flying. Charge, as the humans call it, is flexible, allowing for raging assaults, elegant retreats, and vast instant mobility. Watching two masters of the kanquess battle is like watching raptors wheel against each other in the sky.

Nova (Human ONLY) – a human alteration to charge, it detonates the barrier and unspent kinetic energy of a charge into a radial explosion on impact. So far, no other race has been able to redirect the energy that rapidly, not even asari, and the humans aren't sharing how they did it.

Stasis: a rare and dangerous ability, stasis uses the mass effect field to 'lock' the energy states and energies of a targeted being into a solid configuration. One of the few biotic effects that even effects light, it outlines the target in a shell of glimmering frozen photons, leaving them immobile and unable to move. Nothing can affect the target, but if shots are fired into the stasis field, they hit as soon as it falls, giving the target no time to react or dodge. Stasis is often used by medical personnel to evacuate wounded or badly burned targets, but it can be used for a wide variety of effects.

Storm: Krogan have always venerated lightning and thunder, and that they had insights that lead to this evocation should surprise no one. Essentially a stripping of ions from the air, this effect tears apart atmosphere to create powerful static imbalances that end up generating tremendous electrical charges. The storm does not create lightning or anything so dramatic, instead it overcharges the atmosphere with electricity. The result shorts out electronics, makes using biotics almost impossible due to random shifts in electrical fields, and can completely scramble and wreck robotic enemies. Alliance marines call it 'the biotic version of overload' and that's not far wrong.

Disrupt: There are conflicting stories over who created this sickening power, but none can deny it's force. Disrupt violently and instantly forms unstable mass effect shunts through short distances, much like tiny mass relay effects, dozens of them. Applied to a living being, disrupt does just that – the enormous shifts of mass energy and tearing parts of a being to a location a few feet to the side never ends well. Most living creatures are literally detonated into splashes of smoking blood, and even strong armored vehicles or buildings are riddled with holes and weakened. Disrupt requires gigantic amounts of both biotic strength and discrimination to perform, and as such only the highest level of biotic practitioners can execute it properly.

Beam (Turian ONLY): The turian fascination with disrupt lead to them further refining the power. This was finalized by the turian cabalist known as Tetrimus, nicknamed "The Dagger" for his use of this power. The beam is a rapidly-formed and shifting target mass tunnel, with a heavy pulse of gravitic pull to shove the target into it. Once it hits, the user channels a biotic shockwave down the tunnel, where it detonates inside the target. There is and can be no defense against the Beam, as it bypasses armor, barriers, and shields. Dodging is useless, as the end of the mass tunnel can be shifted nearly at light speed, and once it hits, a shockwave inside any living thing is instant death. Luckily, the Beam requires focus and is a single target attack, but it has vast range and no warning before it hits, making it something like a powerful sniper rifle.

Equalize (Volus ONLY): The volus , so often seen as harmless, have never shied away from finding useful and yet dangerous applications for biotics. Such is the case with this unique ability. Equalize works on the sub-atomic level, warping rather than breaking molecular bonds to cause them to discharge excess energy states. Against inert metal or non-charged items, this is harmless. Against a biotic , it's like a grounding rod, discharging all of their bio-electrical energy at once into the ground and shutting down their entire nervous system. Equalize is not very effective on systems without great differentials in charge – normal people's bio-electrical amperage is simply too low to be effected , as are most smaller robots. But larger bots, gunships, starships, and biotics are vulnerable. The asari , in particular, hate this power, as it literally kills them instantly.

* * *

**High Order Energy Manipulation:**

Flare: once a secret of the Thirty Families of the Asari, flare is now known to many, but few have the strength or control to use it. Flare is basically a biotic bomb, a destabilizing blast of biotic warp fields designed to trigger the violent disruption of molecular bonds and churn matter into plasma. The results are explosive and overwhelming, as force-phase shifting matter to plasma generates enormous heat and blast effects. Flare is extremely draining , and a practitioner unable to control the amount of energy it drains can easily kill themselves trying to use it. Aria T'Loak, once a Princess of House T'Armal, is well known for throwing this power around.

Channel: an awe-inspiring talent, it allows the user to wield raw energies from another source directly. A channel can turn aside an explosion, sending the flame and shock hurling back at their attacker, bat aside splashes of plasma, even drive their unshielded hand into an electrical source and hurl untamed sprays of electricity. The aiming and control of such forces is not very precise, but watching an asari matriarch laugh as she ignores plasma artillery strikes is enough to send most non-biotics running for their very lives.

Shell (asari) : Shell is the derangement of natural energy states among molecules, binding together the energy states and valance levels of surrounding matter to create a nano-thin shell of compressed degenerate matter, commonly called neutronium. The mass of even such minute amounts of this material is immense – a shell a micron thick weights a hundred tons. But it's utter density means it very simply cannot be pierced by any currently known weapons or forces. The shell is unstable, and will rapidly degenerate into a blaze of high-energy sub-mesonic particles, gamma rays, and pure energy with explosive force within a few seconds of creation. The most famous use of this ability was during the Krogan wars, when the high solar priestess of Athame used the Shell to block a direct hit from a cruiser main gun, then combined the breakdown of the shell with a Channel to blast a hole into the ship. The sight of a single asari woman in ritual robes literally battling a starship was key in breaking the morale of the Kehphic Valley Clans, giving the turians the access they needed to launch the genophage.

Annihilation: an eerie,black-laced energy field, this rips apart energy states of surrounding matter, literally fraying apart everything that touches the user. The very air sizzles ominously around them, and flesh is burnt to warp-smeared bones at the lightest touch. Annihilation is a dangerous power, the untrained can consume themselves with it if unwary, but it is prized by those who engage in close quarters combat, as it makes them impossible to safely strike in return.

Dissipate (Asari ONLY) – the use of high order flares, pulsed in perfect sequence, to simulate a pulse disruptor, dissipating an enemy's biotic abilities. The most closely held secret of the Asari, it is never taught to aliens.

Lash (Human) – a set of linked kinetic manipulated points, formed into a whip – kinetic potential is passed from segment to segment to strike with devastating force. Pioneered by Cerberus, lash is a link between basic kinetics and more stringent energy-manipulation invocations.


	4. Chapter 4 - Biotic Utility and Gear

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

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**A/N : ** _I'm kind of juggling a lot of projects right now - this, the Cerberus doc, my main fiction, beta reading for two people, and building a Minecraft server , so my update schedule is very erratic. After this is biotic specialists , and then some famous biotics. Tell me what else you think needs to be written about in the Encyclopedia. _

* * *

**Biotics and Long Range Combat**

Most biotics are designed use at range. Biotics have great value on the battlefield because they can provide a force multiplier equal to heavy weapons or other units that require large amounts of investment or logistical support at the cost of a few hearty meals and a bio-amp.

That being said, there are biotics who specialize in sniping and biotic artillery. Certainly some powers, particularly the turian's beam, can act in the capacity of a sniper rifle, and flare is quite literally biotic artillery, yet there are a number of applications for long-range combat where a biotic can act in a support role as well.

For snipers, biotic barriers do not register on most energy scanners and are invulnerable to disabling EMP pulses. They do not glow and do not crackle or hiss in the rain. Combined with the fact that they are basically kinetic inhibitors, they also tend to soften footfalls. All of this makes a biotic barrier a good defense for a sniper. A sniper can use a biotic field to hold themselves absolutely still, and combine pulls, throws, or singularities to leave multiple targets vulnerable to sniper fire.

When it comes to modern artillery, most pieces are motorized or mounted on hover platforms, relying on VI coordination and remote drones for target coordination and localization. Two biotics working together don't need any of this, as one can link powerful biotic fields to any number of objects and another biotic can detonate said field. Biotics can use warp or other disassociation powers to bring down fortifications silently, breach even hardened bunkers, and even link a barrier or repulsion field to a missile to help it repel anti-missile defenses.

In regular long range combat on the platoon or detachment level, a single biotic is roughly the equivalent of five riflemen or two heavy infantrymen. Aside from military special forces, most soldiers have inexpensive shielding and relatively cheap armor – a good biotic's barrier is several times stronger than that of a class I or II defense kinetic shield. Additionally, biotics can deploy additional barriers as static or adhoc defenses against incoming fire.

When defending, biotics can disrupt enemy charges, deflect or even fling back at the target grenades, and render most attempts as using attrition tactics pointless by dint of wide-area biotic attacks such as warp or smear. On the attack, biotics are a demoralizing force to have to defend against, especially as hard cover is not a defense against warp fire or being hurled away by a throw.

* * *

**Biotics, Close Quarters Combat (CQB) and Martial Arts Styles**

Conversely, most biotics are not trained or effective at close range, even if they have attacks that work in near proximity to an enemy. Many biotic practitioners require calm, focus, and stability to bring their powers to bear, and every punch and kick from an enemy obviously causes pain. Enough nervous system disruption can stop biotics from being able to generate a strong field.

Salarians and volus are completely helpless in CQB, turians are poor at such, and many humans are not good at it. However, a few races practice such close-in combat to prepare for such an event. Krogan are brawlers and have a few tricks to deal with in close combat, but it's mainly the asari and drell who focus on biotic CQB.

The asari and drell both have trained themselves to mitigate the effects of enemy assaults on their ability to concentrate, but more than that, they have many styles of martial arts designed to work with biotics.

The most famous asari martial art is susano, or "unyielding frame". Susano uses biotic barriers tied to the form of the user by a gentle pull field, creating segments of literal biotic armor to cover the forearms, face, chest and knees. Semitransparent, this blocks enemy punches and mitigates close in damage. Susano relies on blocking enemy strikes then discharging this biotic energy in blasts of kinetic energy times with punches or kicks, shattering enemy bones.

The other asari martial art that most know of is inata, or "gentle touch". The name is deceptive, as humans liken this practice to the legendary stories of dim mok, or death touch. The inita charges the hands with warpfire, held between a swirling segment of barriers. This warp energy pulses outwards explosively when the outer barrier is released, usually upon a touch. The asari then throws all her biotic strength into the warpfire, usually placed against the heart or other vital organ. It's bad enough when a warp field erupts around you, one basically shoved directly into your chest is almost always lethal.

Drell biotics rely on constant use of aid and other lightening exercises to make the drell's already high rate of speed too fast to follow, and lots of use of a contained use of biotics to strengthen kicks and punches. This is called zerzatio, or "the hook", where targets are subjected to a pull seconds before the drell connects with a blow. This has the tendency to pull a target out of defensive stances and leave them staggering and open for killing chops and kicks.

Human vanguards have been working on a form they call Judotics, a blend of judo and biotic leverage powers like lift and slam. When augmented by biotic power, a judoka can snap spines and arms with ease, especially if they charge into close range before the target has a chance to react.

Finally, Glorious batarian biotics are strong enough to modify their barrier to store a certain amount of kinetic impact energy and discharge it in a blast of power. They do this when a target gets in close, absorbing a hail of punches and then lashing out with all of the kinetic energy in a scything backhand. Called uk'hast, or "the crushing embrace", this often snaps the neck of a target.

It should be emphasized that most trained biotics, even highly skilled ones, do not train heavily in biotic CQB as it is usually a rare event.

* * *

**Biotics and Electronics**

Since biotics relies on the manipulation of bio-electrical energy, it should come as no surprise that some companies produce electronic devices that work with biotics to provide information, support or utility.

The most common electronic device among biotics is the field strength sensor. Worn bare against the skin, it measures the body's bio-electrical charge and amperage, warning the biotic when their energy levels reach critical states. Incautious biotics that pull too heavily from their body can knock themselves unconscious or even drain their entire nervous system, and the FSS prevents that. Some combine it with a small field pulsar to ensure their biotics doesn't end up killing them, the pulsar activating and stopping any biotic fields when the energy of the body gets too low.

Another common piece of electronic gear is a EM field HUD. Used by soldiers mostly, it can show biotic fields to the naked eye that are usually invisible, as well as allow a user to target their own biotics to weak points in barriers and other EM fields (such as security systems). These are invaluable for biotics who use high-order energy manipulations, where incorrect field strengths can result in biotic backlashes.

Some anti-biotic electronic devices exist, aside from the pulse suppressors and the phase inhibitor. The most dangerous of these is the field dissipation device, a small electronic item that has eezo contained within a spun electromagnet. This generates a powerful rotating biotic field that can detonate biotic abilities, including a barrier. Horrifically expensive due to the delicate VI required to balance and maintain the field as well the cost of eezo (a clip of 20 such devices costs about as much as a main battle tank), they can be fired from large caliber rifles and have a fairly short range of about 100 yards. When they hit a biotic target who is not using a biotic power, they act much like a super-powerful phase inhibitor, but if they hit a target actively using biotics, they create a titanic biotic explosion which is usually lethal to the biotic target suddenly shorn of his barrier.

* * *

**Biotics and Cybernetics**

Most cybernetics does not work well with biotics unless it's custom built around the user's nervous system and care is taken to make sure that the cyberware does not impede nervous signals, nor that electronic systems don't play havoc with electromagnetic fields. As such, 'biotic rated' cyberware, often called blueware, is even more expensive than standard cybernetics.

Generally speaking, cybernetic limbs that replace the legs are the easiest to fashion. Organ replacements and bio-immune augments are more complex. Since most biotics use their arms and hands to shape the fields of a biotic power, arm cyberware must have eezo lined nerve channels built into it, which can range into the low millions of credits, while any form of cybernetic alterations to the nervous system or spine can range into the low tens of millions. Needless to say, only a handful of biotic users have extensive cybersystems. The legendary Tetrimus had most of his body replaced and augmented by cyberware, and the conservative estimate of what that cost was several billion credits. Command Shepard was approximately 65% full conversion cyborg after her death, and again, this cost several billion credits.

Since cybernetic components can be replaced, some aging biotics with more money than caution have spent vast fortunes on refitting their nervous system with copper plated, eezo lined, cybernetic move-by-wire systems linked to VI's that interpret brain signals. This allows them some level of biotic ability and increased mobility and agility, but it usually requires anywhere from nine to twenty six pounds of eezo. As refined eezo of biotics-blueware quality goes for around seven to ten million credits per ounce, this becomes prohibitively expensive.

* * *

**Biotic Anomalies**

Some biotics have abilities that have never been recreated, and some have natural effects that biotic scientists and researchers do not understand. These are classed as "anomalies" and are often the source of new biotic powers when the principles behind the act become understandable.

The most famous anomaly known is the tha'chass, or "heartrage" among the asari nobles known as the Thirty. In times of great stress and rage, usually brought on by threats or danger to a daughter, mother, or other close loved one, the asari glands that store and absorb eezo discharge their entire contents into the asari nervous system, while the adrenal glands produce a catalyzed enzyme that results in the asari electrical organ sending an overcharge into the nervous system.

The risks of this are severe – it can lead to sterility, shattered nerves, paralysis, or death – but the result is a field strength that not even a Glorious batarian could hope to match. This enzyme, and the eezo dump, is very short lived – perhaps ten or twenty seconds of power, and then usually a collapse – but recordings over the years have shown that some of the most incredible feats are possible under the affect of the tha'chass. In some asari, it comes unexpectedly, which can be dangerous if they weren't ready for it.

Lady Matriarch Benezia T'Soni experienced seven different instances of tha'chass, when most asari don't survive the first or second time it happens. There is some indication that House T'Soni may have engaged in salarian-backed genetic manipulation of asari genetics to allow them access to the tha'chass, as asari history is littered with stories of T'Soni warriors using the tha'chass to defeat otherwise unstoppable foes.

Another "anomaly" is the salarian ability of m'Gann, or "the slow time". A salarian who reaches dedicated heights of biotic meditation can sometimes tap into the biotic fields he generates to speed his reactions to beyond the speed at which living beings can react. As if they were moving through a mass effect tunnel, it literally blue-shifts the salarian in question, allowing them to move hundreds of feet in a second and emerging in a cascade of Cerenkov radiation. It is not a biotic charge, since the charge envelops it's user in biotic energy and moves at about one-tenth of lightspeed, whereas the m'Gann has been clocked at FTL speeds more than once.

Researchers who studied the Protheans have found indications of biotic battles fought between unknown foes and the Protheans, and it's believed Prothean biotics incorporated more than mere bio-electrical energies. Prothean biotics may have actually been able to draw upon ambient energy in the surrounding air or even on the magnetic field of the planet for additional power. Many, many biotics have attempted to achieve this and either found nothing or torn themselves to tiny pieces, as no practitioner has been able to actually control the force suddenly raging through them.

* * *

**Biotic Weapons**

Most races discovered biotics some time after they reached a high enough civilized state to be able to work with eezo, but some races, such as the asari and krogan, were exposed to it in more savage times. As a result, they tend to incorporate physical weapons into their use of biotics, such as swords for the asari, hammers for the krogan, and the rare but always lethal talon daggers.

Asari 'swords' come in two flavors, the mass-produced 'shock sword' and the ancient, incredibly dangerous warp sword. Shock swords are rods of enriched heavy metals, hammered flat and given a hilt containing a weak pulsar field that surrounds only the rod itself. A biotic can channel kinetic energy into this field and discharge it directly into any target it hits, turning a slender piece of sharpened metal into an impact that hits with 6000 to 7000 PSI. Most are curved, forming a half-tube shape that comes to blunted ends, and some are almost half spirals that fit over the arm. Only a few take a shape anything like traditional human, salarian, or batarian swords (which all have very similar shapes).

Warp swords, on the other hand, are usually highly curved blades, like a crescent moon, or other flowing shapes – a series of crashing, stylized waves, set into black crystal, or even yonic shaped flared rods that end in a half-curve. Ancient warp swords were made of eezo-tainted carbon steel inlaid and smelted with electroconductive crystals, heated and folded hundreds of thousands or even millions of times. (By comparison, the finest human katana is folded at best a thousand times). Only asari were patient enough to painstakingly find iron of uniform grain sizes and hammer it so smooth and pure that it is basically elemental steel. Packed with eezo fused into crystals, these weapons were no less dangerous than the modern, plasma-forged version made of gravity-compressed carbon nanofiber. Both have a hollow center filled with purified eezo and can channel warp fire directly along the blade. Already monomolecularly sharp, the molecular destructive effects of warp fire means they can cut through nearly anything.

The krogan, less interested in sharpness and more in gore, created biotic hammers, which housed heavy iron-laced eezo crystals in a sliding tube that fit into a giant hammer head. When charged with kinetic energy by the user, the head swinging down forced an amplification of the field by the eezo's shifting the field as it slid inside the hammer head. Much like a plunger applying frictional suction, this would reinforce the blow being struck, usually reducing whatever it hit to a spray of paste and body parts. The krogan warlord Okeer Ganev had a biotic hammer made of chemically-stiffened salarian laser steel, and was able to hit a pressure sensing plate with a strike of eleven thousand PSI in a demonstration of might before the Krogan wars. (This is equivalent to being tossed onto a planet with a gravity of 750+ G's, or a kinetic force of over seventy-five thousand k Pa. For comparison, modern starships would be sundered by a force of twenty thousand k Pa and most dreadnaught main guns have a maximum blast potential of around a hundred thousand k Pa.)

Krogan also used smaller 'fang hammers' – hollowed-head hammers that could be thrown long distances and then biotically made 'heavy' to fall upon an enemy and crack open plating or armor. Some krogan combined them with explosives, or crushed eezo to cause the hammer to detonate with a biotic explosion upon striking a target and breaking apart.

Turian talon daggers are often used by cabalists. Grisly trophies, these are fashioned from metal-lacquered talons of fallen cabal members, stiffened by a core of meteoric iron that also forms the hilt and handle. The biotic can channel weak levels of warp fire through such blades, leading them to have a sinister reputation among turians, who already distrust biotics.


	5. Chapter 5 - Biotic Specialists

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

_A/N: This is kind of a short chapter, as I wanted to touch on the concept of a biotic who uses nothing but biotics to fight with. _

* * *

**Biotic Specialists and a philosophy of biotics**

The oldest and most famous biotic academy in Citadel Space is the Salarian Institute for the Mind. It has a slogan written over it's main doorway:

_It is by skill alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the grace of eezo that thoughts acquire force, the eyes acquire glow, the glow becomes a warning. The warning is by skill alone, neither sword nor shield can overcome the mind. _

The general civilian's understanding of biotics varies by race to race. Asari, all being natural biotics, see it as merely another part of life, no more interesting than breathing or eating. Krogan see it as a weapon, to be honed and trained in. Humans and turians both see it as magical, fearfully distrustful of it's abilities and isolating it's practitioners. The volus see it as an equalizer in combat, one that has little economic cost for great profit. Drell see it as a gift, perhaps from the gods.

But the salarian view is the most unique, and it was salarians who pioneered the concept of the biotic specialist – someone who uses biotics as the primary method of combat. The salarians see biotics as form of combat and ability that is it's own power. Biotics can be applied, with sufficient study and forethought, to almost any problem, task, or combat requirement. Rather than having the biotic attempt to shoe-horn in their biotic skills into some other framework of training, the salarians embraced the idea of the biotic as being purely devoted to his ability.

A normal biotic, even with asari, relies on weapons, armor, tactical training and the like to achieve their goal, with biotics being an important part of their arsenal, but not exclusive. A SA C7 soldier sees himself as a soldier first and a biotic second. A turian cabalist defines himself by his cabal, not his ability to use biotics.

Specialists, on the other hand, are trained with the sole concept of their biotics being the centerpiece of their power. Rather than try to train a biotic to handle a dozen other required tasks,or master the use of weapons and the like, the specialists focus only on biotics. The salarian mantra above indicates that the salarians feel that biotics, by itself, is perhaps the most powerful equalizer in any conflict.

Some biotic practitioners are just soldiers who can use biotics. While this certainly gives him an advantage, they will never reach true mastery to the level that biotic specialists can, because the mastery of biotics on the level practiced by these people is far beyond throwing a warp field on an enemy.

Although most of the specialist programs follow the mindset that the salarians devised when they started their specialist programs, each race has it's own quirks in what it sees as valuable. However, while each race tailors it's specialists to certain cultural or practical requirements, they all share a few common traits.

The first is that they do not need a weapon or armor to be lethal, they literally are weapons. The drell assassin known as Fascination was able to destroy much of a Blue Suns merc group with nothing more than biotics. The famous Tyriun No Kage, a human biotic specialist, killed sixty-four people in his career using nothing more than cleverly placed pulls. Freed of the need for armor and weapons (even if they still use them), the specialist is always ready for combat.

The second is that the biotic specialist tends towards focusing on a few biotic abilities to a high degree of skill rather than many, but they refine these abilities until they are honed to a razor's edge. Many specialists can do things with their chosen skill sets that other biotics can't achieve, and as a result they can surprise their foes. Furthermore, what they do with such skills is often impossible without hundreds of hours of practice and hard work, giving them greater insight into how biotics work and thus are usually capable of defeating enemy biotics with ease.

The final trait they all share is that biotic specialists are just that – specialists in biotics. With very few exceptions, the bulk of their skills lie in this vein. There are powerful biotics (Commander Shepard, for example) who have great biotic skills, but they rely on other aspects of their training to find success. Biotic specialists may study a few other things, but they approach every problem with the mindset of using biotics to solve it.

Not all races have biotic specialists. Salarians started the trend, even though war priestesses of the asari were around first, no one really looked at them in that light. But many races – volus, batarians, drell – don't have the same mindset of a need to focus solely on biotics and have no real specialists. The krogan do not have biotic specialists either, although in truth, the Warlord counts as such in some ways, since all they do is fight.

* * *

**Human Biotic Specialists**

The humans have several specialist types, as they are still experimenting with and learning about the limits and potential of biotics. All human biotics start in the Adept Program, and from there are either trained in CQB as a Vanguard, or given specialist training as a Sentinel. Both types of biotic are basically just soldiers, but all biotics undergo additional training and testing to determine their skillset and capability. Most wash out of these programs and are placed as generalist biotics with various units.

Adepts who show great promise at high speed physical combat and the control of warp fields are often graduated into the "Slayer" program, where they combine stealth and martial arts with the use of monomolecular blades and waves of biotic force. The slayer uses the blade to bolster their non-traditional biotic assaults, leaping forward with biotically assisted gymnastics. Their use of warp is very finely developed, capable of covering a narrow cone or a wide areas, and often double as saboteurs with the careful use of warp. Most Slayers are in the N7 program, and are used as scouts, assassins, and forward intelligence officers.

Biotics with a good grasp of molecular manipulation and who can managed to graduate N7 school are moved into a different program, called the "Fury" program. They use powerful techniques like shear and reave, as well as adding area-effect biotics to their already impressive list of abilities. Eventually, most also master short-range kanquess biotic charge abilities for further flexibility.

The SA's political officers are also all biotics. Their exact biotic program is not public, but uses most of the training and focus from the Sentinel program along with courses in politics, psychology, and training in command and control systems, but they primarily focus on impressive displays of biotics to overawe non-biotics and enhance their level of perceived power. Most commissars use the flashiest or goriest possible abilities and train with them constantly.

Generally speaking, human biotic specialists are almost always soldiers through and through. Very few of them survive long enough to move into command positions, and of those who do, they tend towards the less aggressive adepts than high-skilled specialists. This means they perform well in battle, but have very little utility off the battlefield. Furthermore, most of the biotics who have strong leadership skills end up in the commissariat, rather than general infantry. While solid in biotic potential and combat ability, human biotics often get sidelined to more famous soldiers or buttonholed as support troops.

* * *

**Asari Biotic Specialists**

The idea of asari having actual specialists in biotics often surprises people, who assume that all asari are good at them. Among those more familiar with asari, they presume that specialists are the asari commandos, and to a certain degree that is true. But commandos also study infowar techniques, sabotage, electronics, and are much like (and were the model for) the SA's elite Sentinel program. While certainly dangerous and deadly, they do not focus solely on biotics. In fact, despite their natural ability, many asari simply don't use their biotics as often as the common person thinks, especially maidens, as the asari prefer to spend centuries mastering it.

While some asari matriarchs have powerful biotic skills, and usually the asari military will encourage it's people to practice the use of their biotics. However, asari really only have two roles that focuses almost solely on biotics to the exclusion of all other practices. One of those is the war priestess.

A devotee of Athame, the war priestess only uses biotics in combat, relying on neither conventional weapons, nor armor, or even transport. Many of them are matriarchs, and they have tremendous levels of biotic power. The highest religious rank in their church, the Priestess of the Sun, is universally held to be the strongest biotic in existence, fully capable of ignoring small arms fire and taking down armored vehicles.

War priestess are far more rare than other races biotic specialists. On the other hand, no war priestess has been defeated by enemies in over a millennia, and the last time it did happen the asari in question took half an army and orbital bombardment to kill. Used sparingly and with restraint, most war priestess end up training commandos and other forward deployed forces rather than engaging in actual combat. If these champions have a weakness, it is in their lack of any abilities beyond their biotics. Most are trained preachers and have some leadership skills, but when it comes to any kind of infowar, military planning, or other support functions, a war priestess cannot be of much help. While this is true to some degree of all biotic specialists, it is particularly a factor in the war priestess, who is basically a combat-capable civilian.

The other biotic specialist of the asari, if they can be considered such, would be the Night-wind. The ardat-yakshi that are born to the Thirty are never admitted to the public, and the Thirty have spent millennia convincing the Justicars and asari public that the Thirty don't produce ardat-yakshi. They do.

Instead of being shuffled off to monasteries or killed, however, they are identified very early on and implanted. Nearly lobotomized and stuffed full of drugs, these asari undergo complicated surgery to implant a cortex bomb and tracking cyberware into the body (along with certain drugs and operations to prevent asari regeneration from rejecting such cyberware – a carefully concealed ability of the Thirty). The Night-wind are dominated from birth, controlled with hypnotic programming as well as powerful drugs to make them obedient, and tracked constantly.

The Night-wind are ritually allowed to meld and consume certain criminals and other undesirables the Thirty want to get rid of. This means the average Night-wind is far stronger than most asari. They have a wide array of biotic powers, but most of them go for the highest-end disciplines such as flare and shell. Night-wind are hardly ever deployed into something as crass as mere battle, being reserved for high-end assassinations. Due to the need to never leave a trace or anything that can be tied back to the Thirty, they are denied the use of anything but biotics for weapons and defense.

The cortex bomb in their heads holds a single, magnetically contained bit of antimatter (about sixty atoms worth). The explosion from such is titanic, utterly obliterating the Night-wind operative when detonated, when life signs cease, or when the onboard biocomp that monitors her vital functions feels the Night-wind is compromised.

* * *

**Turian Biotic Specialists**

Turians use biotics as heavily armed assassination squads, so it should be no surprise that their biotic specialist is more of the same.

The turian strike cabalist is the most common of these specialists, trained in both biotic charges and long range biotic combat skills. Skilled with a wide array of biotics and heavily trained in espionage and evasion techniques, the strike cabalist is a very complete operator in terms of skill sets. They combine strong biotic defenses, cloaking fields, and poison-tipped weapons, and are much more dangerous version of the regular turian cabalist. They usually operate in a two-man team, and are given extensive training in alien cultures and languages to help them blend in. They are the heaviest hitters in the Turian military, the last line of defense and the first line of assault.

When not deployed in combat, the strike cabalists engage in biotic research, almost full time. Their training disdains the use of weapons aside from talon daggers or ritualistic poison blades on the arms, and they work hard at ensuring they can operate far beyond the reach of support and still provide strike power to the Turian military.

Given the turian love for combined arms tactics, the purity of the turian biotic specialist sets them apart from other turian cabals (who rely on weapons and armor).

* * *

**Salarian Biotic Specialists**

There are three different salarian biotic specialists, each one with a very tight focus.

The first is the biotic form adept. These are, for lack of a better word, martial artists, who only use biotics that aids their speed, mobility, and direct hitting power. Focusing on biotic jumps and the use of lift to get to higher elevations. They do not engage in close quarters battle – they are no more capable of taking a direct hit in CQB than any other salarian that relies on their focus and meditative calm – but they are very good as using their biotics to strike a killing blow when undetected. They have a reputation for being nearly impossible to take down, as they master biotic defenses and can use powers in unexpected ways. Relying on stealth, speed, and evasion, they can close the distance to a target and dispatch them with a high powered biotic attack or biotic-augmented kick and be gone before defenders can react.

The second specialist is the biotic assault adept. Masters of transcendental mediation, these salarians build up large amounts of biotic power and are only good for one or two strikes before they are exhausted, but they are capable of staggering feats of focus for a short period of time. They have been known to throw multiple flares in the span of a few seconds, or create powerful defensive barriers that bounce orbital kinetic fire. They are almost useless in direct combat – they have to meditate for hours or even days to reach the proper moment of focus. But their value to the STG is immense as they are living "plan B's", allowing overwhelming force to be applied for a few moments in battle. They do not have any other military training and are considered civilian specialists by the STG, albeit ones who rate a 10 man guard platoon.

The final salarian biotic specialist is the biotic medical adept. Neither assassin nor living biotic battery, these are biotics who have adapted their abilities towards medical support. Stasis fields, using biotics to reset broken bones or lift seriously injured casualties, warp to clear wreckage, and the like, the biotics are also trained in conventional medicine. Their true danger is in the fact that while their skills are intended to be non-combatant in nature, they have such fine control over their powers that, if pressed, they can mount some truly spectacular attacks. The biotic medical adept is part of the standard six man STG biotic strike team (2 conventional biotics, 2 heavy soldiers, 1 Shieldbreaker and 1 biotic medic) and often has to double as a comms specialist or other task.

* * *

**The use of biotic specialists vs. regular biotics**

The difference between a specialist and a regular biotic is more than just training. A human adept can usually throw a warp field about ten feet across, with a burn rate of 4 to 5 inches of standard steel a minute, at a range of fifty to sixty feet. A Slayer, on the other hand, can fling a warp field anywhere from nine inches to 150 feet across, with a burn rate of a foot and half of standard steel in a minute, and at ranges as long as six hundred feet.

Yet in terms of pure biotic 'strength', a specialist is not any stronger than the plain adept, really. It is a matter of focus, training, and dependance. A specialist is just better with biotics because they use biotics for literally everything they have to do, from aiding them in carrying a heavy sack of groceries to combat. They embrace their biotics as not just a part of their life, but it's focus.

The standard biotic trains perhaps half an hour a day with their biotics, if that. Many train fairly hard when learning their skills and then rarely if ever once they master them to the level of being able to use them reliably. A biotic specialist, on the other hand, practices between four to eight hours a day on their biotics, using a customized bio-amp and not relying on anything else for support.

While there are many powerful biotics in Citadel space, most of them rely too much on their raw power and not refinement of technique. One reason why asari matriarchs are so powerful biotically is not just their slow growth of eezo absorption, but by dint of having centuries to practice the same moves over and over. It is akin to almost any other skill – a master must work at it constantly to succeed in increasing their prowess.

Biotic specialists are almost never deployed on normal operations, as they are simply too rare and valuable to be wasted on such. They often are employed as biotic instructors, or to assess the potential of biotic candidates, and are usually the most knowledgeable biotics of a given race on how biotic ability works.

* * *

**Biotic specialists weapons and armor**

As stated earlier, almost all biotic specialists don't bother using weapons or armor of any kind. Human biotic specialists use limited weapons, but mostly these are light pistols or the monomolecular swords of the Slayer. Turians also use some melee weapons, but rarely anything else. Part of the danger of the biotic specialist is that they can look like civilians, wearing nothing but civilian clothing and with nothing to indicate their power.

That being said, most have access to light battle armor of some kind (with the notable exception of the asari war priestess and the salarian form adept, who never wear armor of any kind, ). This light armor is almost always designed to be worn under civilian clothing and is mostly there as a backstop for the biotic's barrier.

Many biotic adepts simply don't have much weapons training, and will use pull or throw to disarm their enemies whenever possible to equal the playing field. Against non-biotic foes they can pretty much dominate any battle – using kinetic assaults to keep enemies out of melee range and disabling any weapons the target has before using a biotic attack. Others prefer to attack so swiftly and without any warning so that weapons don't even come into play.


	6. Chapter 6 - Biotic Scientific Theory

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

_A/N: I was planning to do 'famous biotics', but got sidetracked with an argument about the nature of biotics. Everyone knows biotics is basically space magic, but I'm so damned tired of shit being put out there where there's not even a half-assed explanation of how space magic works._

_Being completely insane, I've decided to rectify that. Not only will I explain how this made-up bullshit works, in actual physics no less. _

_However, I'm throwing down some flaky theories here, and I'm not 100% sure it all fits. Since our understanding of dark energy (especially quintessence) is completely theoretical, and since eezo as a substance makes no sense whatsoever (an atomic weight of zero means it's just electrons), much of what I've conjectured here is tentative. _

_Based on what we know, it's the only thing that makes sense, or else you could just recreate biotics with technology. That being said... I'm better on biology and anatomy than I am on quantum physics or perturbation theory, so if you see something I'm doing that's just flat out wrong, tell me. _

_I'm tossing out a lot of technical terms. Wikipedia is your friend. _

* * *

**Biotic Physics – a primer on the basics of eezo **

Biotics was practiced by the asari long before they understood how it actually worked. In fact, with the exception of the salarians, none of the Citadel races that has used biotics has made serious or ongoing efforts to peel back the layers of mysteries that define how it functions. The Protheans did, and races before them, but their research and understanding did not make it through to the current era.

The salarians, having both an incessant curiosity and wishing to see if what could be done with biotics could be expanded, were the first to figure out the basic theory behind it.

As already stated, biotics is the ability to create and manipulate mass effect fields using element zero accumulations embedded in body tissues, bones, or nervous systems. How to allow a being to access biotics is fairly simple and, once the biological issues are worked past, not much different than sending an electrical charge to eezo to get it to negate mass.

The difference is that, despite centuries of research and billions of credits, no one has ever been able to reproduce even the weakest non-kinetic biotic effects with just technology. It took centuries of research to develop pure mass-effect reaction jets and hover vehicles, and the resulting energy required for all of these is far more than a biotic needs to produce much greater effects.

The truth is biotics isn't just the creation of mass effect fields. With the combination of bioelectrical manipulations, eezo appears to have a much greater effect. Element Zero is a naturally occurring phenomenon that, quite literally, doesn't make any sense. It has no electrical charge and is basically a meta-stable shell of neutrons without protons (hence the name element zero, since an element's number is the amount of protons it has). Normally, a mass of neutrons such as this would be called neutronium, and would be immensely dense and heavy. But for some reason, the neutrons are held apart by a poorly understood (and theoretical) quantum force, and appears to be moving between two different phases of matter.

By phases of matter, we mean a fundamental nature to matter or energy. The five states of possible existence are supersolids, solids, liquids, gasses, and plasma. You are almost certainly familiar with solids, liquids and gasses. A super-solid is a solid with it's atoms so compressed together that there is no space between them – this is called "degenerate material" because the strong nuclear force wants to force atoms to stay a certain distance from each other. (This is simplified to a great degree, but one does not require a hard understanding to grasp the concepts). Plasma, on the other hands, is matter super-charged with energy to such a degree that it fails to follow some of the physical laws of matter and begins to act more like energy. Fire is plasma, so are the stars, the fiery blasts of asari weapons, and the exhaust of ion-fusion engines.

Eezo is matter that is constantly undergoing what is called a phase shift. A phase shift is a change in the essential state of matter or energy. Ice melting into water is a phase shift, as is water turning to steam. Igniting a stick of wood is also a phase shift because you create plasma (the fire) from matter (the wood). Likewise, eezo shifted from one particular state of existence to another. The exact timing of this phase shift isn't known, but what happened has been theorized as being related to the changes in the physical laws of the universe right after creation.

Without going too far into unneeded detail, the very early universe was so energetic and hot that physics did not exactly behave the same way as it does now. The changes to eezo seem to stem from this time period. The nature of this phase shift seems to have moved it's basic, fundamental energy state to a much higher vacuum equilibrium point than all other matter in the universe.

An energy state is where matter lies on a point between being a supersolid (absolutely zero energy of any kind) and a plasma (so energetic that it is right on the cusp of becoming pure energy). Every form of matter in the universe has a state at which the energy it has is balanced with, for lack of a more clear term, of the lowest possible energy. For example, no matter how much energy you take from ice, it never compresses further, due to it's crystalline structure. The vacuum point is the energy level at which the entire universe is at rest.

Eezo is different from all other matter, in that it has a higher energy state than everything else we know. As such, to exist in our universe, eezo is constantly bleeding energy, and it bleeds this energy by moving between two phases of matter.

So, what are eezo's two states? That's the curious part. Matter usually shifts to other forms of matter, but eezo is shifting between a state of super-solid degenerate matter and dark matter. To be more clinical, eezo is comprised of, and defined as, "strange matter". Strange matter is particular form of quark matter, a liquid state of material existence theorized to comprise the center of neutron stars. By all modern understanding of physics, eezo should be degenerate, undergoing explosive decompression as it equalizes to the strong repelling force and tries to shed excess energy. But since it's vacuum point is so much higher than everything else in the universe, it cannot shed energy by this method, and thus cycles back and forth.

Eezo should be very heavy. However, the majority of eezo's "mass" is actually expressed as dark matter. Our understanding of dark matter is very theoretical, and as such it's easier to explain what dark matter is not. Dark matter isn't matter as we understand it, as it is "out of sync" with the regular material universe. It exists, and it exerts a gravitational force, but it doesn't interact with normal matter in any way beside that.

Eezo, by moving between these two, has a vibration, called a resonance. Scientists are still not sure why it resonates, or if there is a significance to the resonance frequency. They do know that nothing else in the universe behaves like eezo.

* * *

**How element zero works (sort of) **

The best theory as to what eezo is or has become is highly speculative, and beyond the scope of this document. What is important is how and why eezo's shifts from matter to dark matter allow it to perform the things it does.

Eezo behaves differently for biotics than it does for technological objects. A biotic can do things that no mass effect drive can. Why?

When eezo is electrified, eezo reacts by generating a mass effect field, nullifying mass and weight. Generally speaking, technological electrification (using technology) generates a digital signature. The electrical charge is constant, smooth, and does not vary.

When affected by bioelectric currents, however, there is a critical difference. Regardless of species, all living nervous systems generate charge through complicated methods. Most living creatures end up using what are called voltage-gated ion channels, basically potassium-lined gaps or trenches that generate small electrical charges when chemically activated. Since this process is not exact, it results in in highly variegated electrical action potentials. That is, bioelectrical charges are not steady-state generation of AC or DC power, but rather created on the fly by the difference in these potassium or sodium lined "trenches" that vary in having a positive or negative ionic charge.

A very bad analogy but one that gets the point across is simple: mechanical electrical generation is like turning a crank. The gears of the crank are uniform. Biological electrical generation is like scuffing your shoes on the carpet and then getting a shock when you touch a metal object. The amount varies because the way you create it is very analog and has no uniformity.

The charge is not uniform, nor is the amperage of bio-electrical energy. (For those interested in the biology behind it, this is due to an effect called afterhyperpolization of nerve channels, which results in semi-random resting potentials. Or, in English, nerves transmit a range of electrical charges, and each charge polarizes the nervous material, providing either additional or less resistance.) These shifts are minute and slight, constantly occurring.

Eezo "resonates" at different wavelengths depending on charges. The constant, mechanical generation of current in technological devices provides a pure, stable tone that does not alter or shift, but as a result it only partially activates eezo. Biolelectricity, on the other hand, with a wider range of potential charge values, resonates eezo far more violently.

The discharge of electricity and the vibration of the eezo results in a mass effect shift, but more importantly, with multiple resonance values achieved by living beings, the delta of resonances would normally result in the dark matter "falling out" of the temporary vacuum energy state it is in by shifting into dark energy. There's no real simple way to explain this, but basically, as electricity charges eezo, it responds by attempting to match it's "base" energy state with that of the universe around it. But it can't, because it's operating at a much higher baseline than the rest of the universe. The matter and dark matter can't merely vanish, so to equal out it emits or 'produces' dark energy.

Now, with any such shift of matter and energy, there is inefficiency. The more shaking from various resonances caused by a biotic's multiple electrical frequencies, the more violent and powerful the reaction from the eezo, and the more dark energy produced.

With a jump drive or mass effect core, this shift is a constant state. With the biotic, it's semi-random. But more importantly, since there are multiple resonances going on with a biotic, the shift is inherently unstable. Rather than bleeding dark energy off harmlessly, it "erupts" into our perceived reality.

This dark energy is what empowers biotics. It provides the energy delta that explains why a biotic can do things that a mere eezo core cannot. The benefit is that dark matter converted to dark energy produces more of an effect, and the effects last a long time, since once dark matter is converted to dark energy, it cannot fall back into dark matter. In simpler terms, once the glass is shattered, it would require more energy than it took to break it to put it back together again.

The drawback to this is that eezo converted to dark energy is gone. This is why a biotic weakens over time, along with nervous system issues. The amount of eezo lost is minute, but unless the body has a way to obtain new eezo (like the asari have), then the biotic loses about .3% of their maximum ability a year. Over the course of 50 years, a biotic loses about 5% of their power.

Salarian scientists have been investigating this. The staggering energy ability of Inusannon powerstars, ancient devices the size of a pack of cards that can generate more energy than a series of fusion reactors, seems to stem from this technology, as does the semi-biotic technology of several extinct races curated over the years. Most of the salarian experiments have ended in large explosions, but they continue to refine their understanding. But many of these scientists fear it may not be possible, for merely touching the source of eezo is only half the problem.

* * *

**Biotics and Electromagnetics**

When a biotic calls for a kinetic manipulation, they are using the natural, basic ability of eezo. But when a biotic uses any more advanced manipulation, they are using eezo basically as a tool to create effects using dark energy.

Dark energy is not well understood, and in many cases the theories that explain how it should work conflict each other directly. Dark energy should not affect anything but gravity and mass, which explains why eezo affects such. But dark energy clearly affects more than that. Quintessence, or the fifth fundamental force, is thought by salarian scientists to be the actual "cause" of dark energy, with dark energy merely being the output that affects our reality, with the rest of the effects spilling over into other realities or dimensions.

The average biotic does not possess the multiple doctoral degrees, or the understanding of multidimensional calculus, to consciously affect how his or her electromagnetic manipulation of eezo will result in a given effect. Dark energy appears to flow to the place of most resistance, be that strong nuclear bonds, gravitational attraction, or high energy states. The user merely seems to manipulate where the dark energy goes, and a wide array of effects are produced.

The feedback from this is interpreted by the brain through the nerves as some form of stimuli, which can be recognized and repeated. Even biotic animals can do this, although not as efficiently as sentient beings can. It doesn't seem to matter if the biotic grasps what they are doing or not. Bioelectrical pulses charge the eezo into different resonances, producing different dark energy emanations, and in turn producing varying effects on the environment or on themselves.

The salarians have had zero luck with using electromagnetic field manipulations to alter eezo-generated mass effect fields, aside from the basic concepts used in lining up with a mass relay. In order to do so, all possible permutations of a quantum outcome would have to be predicted, and the correct charge pattern created. However, due to the nature of quantum physics, even observing the current pattern would require a different pattern to set up a resonance.

The salarians researches have paid off, in that salarians have the natural ability to sense electromagnetic fields, and their own biotics use this to shape and improve their biotic ability and powers.

* * *

**Biotics and the Laws of Limits **

Since biotics is the tangible effect of manipulating a dark matter to dark energy conversion, there must be a waste product since no conversion is 100% effective, due to entropy. It is very likely that the waste product are waves of quantum instability.

The very highest biotic abilities, such as shell and lash, manipulate both matter and energy in ways that the laws of conservation say should be impossible. There seems to be no practical limits to what biotics can achieve, and yet through the observation of what is and is not possible with biotics, salarians have come to a number of theories that they feel define what biotics is capable of.

These laws were based on hundreds of years of observations, and thousands of years of asari experience. They are 'laws' in the same way that there is a law of gravity – there have been no observable reactions that don't meet the laws. More importantly, since the use of biotics seems to violate the laws of conservation, a price that we cannot see is being paid _somewhere. _A biotic can move a 40 ton object with their mind, but with a caloric cost that is a fraction of that. Granted, some of the missing energy is coming from the energy produced by dark matter turning into dark energy, and the rest is from the dark energy being put to work.

But the laws imply that biotics does have hard limits. The laws are fairly straightforward, and are taught to most biotics early on.

The first law is the _law of limited return : _the higher-order a biotic ability has, the more difficult it is to increase it's effectiveness by adding additional biotic power. This basically says that there is a hard limit on how complex a biotic power can be, because at some point the effectiveness of adding more raw power to the ability just makes it require more. It's like adding armor to a space ship : more armor is more mass, requiring bigger and stronger engines. Since a ship has limited size, there is only so much engine mass that can be put into a vehicle.

Likewise, there is only so much power than can be pushed into a biotic ability before more power just ends up doing very little. For example, warp is the manipulation of multiple mass effect fields. More power produces more fields and more damage, but eventually you hit a point where maintaining that many mass effect fields is so draining and useless that the near infinite damage is canceled out by the difficulty of maintaining everything.

It also suggest that lower-order powers are not just easier because of their lack of complexity, but because less work against the fundamental laws of the universe are involved. While at low levels the energy fields are well within known energy level transitions, more complex biotics simply should not work. At it's most fundamental level, warp is tearing apart strong nuclear forces between molecules, yet no waste heat is produced by such. The very idea of a gap between observed heat and required energy would imply that every biotic manipulation has absolute limit on the power of a biotic, one that can be represented by mathematical functions.

The second law is the_ law of quadratic scale costs. _It says that the further from basic kinetic effects a given power is, the larger the field effects must be to generate it, and the smaller the window there is for such translations to occur. A simple pull is not difficult for even basic biotic practitioners to perform, while higher order effects are more difficult. No one ever understood why some methods were harder than others until this law was figured out. If the first law places a limit on the ability of any biotic power, then the second law places a limit on biotics as a whole – beyond a certain point, some manipulations, regardless of how complex they are, simply would require translations of eezo from matter to dark energy at a rate that is not possible. This is why a biotic can do some things a mass core can't on a small scale, but can't fling people across the galaxy without a ship.

The third law of biotics is the _law of scalar reduction_. The cost to maintain a biotic field effect must be paid immediately to generate it, and over time to maintain it, but the maintenance cost increases with time, range, and force. A warp field over a small area and a warp field over a large area cost the same to produce, but the large area requires more ongoing power to maintain. Since the first law says costs scale with complexity, and the second law says higher costs require bigger fields, then the third law states bigger fields mean more costs over time.

This at first seems counterintuitive, as if one is stating A = B because B = A. But the crux of the law is that smaller, tightly targeted effects require smaller fields even if they have a high cost to start with. This is why so many high order abilities are more sharply targeted than the large area abilities of lower biotic powers.

Taken together, the three laws mean that weak biotics are limited to either low complexity biotics that don't' require a lot of surge, or low power biotics that don't require a large field. The laws also explain why two biotics of much different overall power don't have different powers in basic abilities – a pull from a asari matriarch is no more or less powerful than one from a human just starting their biotic training in terms of field strength.

That is not to say the pull overall isn't or can't be more powerful – there is more to the power than the strength of the field, such as how quickly it can be targeted, range, duration, etc. But shoving more raw power into a pull doesn't make it more powerful, it only affects those secondary effects (range, etc). The hard limits on how much eezo can be converted at one time is what limits all biotics.

The discovery of the laws was instrumental in creating a new wave of bio-amps, allowing for modeling of given energy values. This was used in producing the equations of how much energy is needed to produce a given effect. Bio-amps began incorporating computer technology and simple VI's when the laws were pioneered, allowing a biotic to more finely measure field strengths and conserve strength.


	7. Chapter 7 - Trivia and Famous Biotics

**The Encyclopedia Biotica : A compilation of biotics**

_**A/N: **__I can't really think of anything else to add to this, unless people have specific ideas they'd like to see given further attention. Between the biology, the science, the powers, the framework and this section (a mix of neat uses, famous people and creepypasta) I've completed everything I set out to do with this. _

_Please feel free to use it as a resource and I hope you enjoyed reading it – please leave a review if you found it interesting or useful. If no one really likes it I'll probably scale back on further documentation. _

* * *

**Unexpected Biotic Uses**

Most biotics tend to use only a few powers, because mastering the proper manipulations of multiple abilities takes a lot of time and practice. For asari this is not as much of an issue, as they have centuries to learn, and indeed many matriarchs or war priestess know dozens of biotic abilities.

But the true strength of a biotic is their ability to use their powers in an indirect or alternative fashion. A biotic using a warp to weaken armor or burn down opponents is uncreative. One using it to weaken a pillar holding back a thousand pounds of scrap metal to set a trap, then using pull to bring it down on the heads of a regiment of infantry , is more inventive.

The most famous and creative use of biotics was the battle of the salarian renegade and mystic Gaho and the war priestess Ama T'Rome some six hundred years ago. The salarian was the absolute master at his form of biotic ability, and Ama T'Rome was the Priestess of the Sun at the time. The battle ended when Matriarch Ama managed to bypass Gaho's "multiphase barrier" technique by using rapid shift warp fields to charge the clouds above with positive ions, and then channel to ground the entire area out, creating a massive lightning bolt that fried the salarian instantly.

The defining gap between a truly skilled biotic and a strong one is that skilled biotics will use their powers in creative, unexpected and hard to predict ways. A few ways that some of these powers have been creatively used follows.

**Pull: **the simplest power , this ability has been turned to many purposes. At it's simplest level it's used to pull and suspend a target in midair, but it can be used for other purposes

-pulling weapons from an enemy hand

-shattering a glass window and driving shards into enemy eyes

-pulling a sharp object from behind an enemy to impale them

-pulling heavy objects to form a position of cover

-pulling down trees or other foliage to cover tracks

One clever use of pull involved teammates using pull to evacuated pinned team members out of a lower level. Another involved pulling molten metal from a fabrication plant onto an enemy. Pull has almost limitless applications, with enough forethought. Commander Shepard defeated the geth on Eden Prime at the train station with a pull of the container units set on high for storage, dropping the 10-ton containers in a large group into about seventy geth, crushing most of them.

**Throw: **Throw, quite simply, is wasted as a direct application on an enemy. While hurling them back can be both effective and amusing, throw can be used to weaponize nearly anything. A handful of gravel turns into a shotgun, and a simple metal rod becomes a sniper rifle – a rod of metal going 400 meters per second will kill almost anything.

Throw has more kinetic power the smaller the object being manipulated is. The asari often used small , two foot long spear-like objects that they would augment with throw to do their hunting with – using modern materials, a simple metal spike with a powerful throw will tear right through most armor. Throw can be used in more sadistic fashions – applied to particulates like sand it can easily blind a foe. With enough control and a large body of water, it can act much like a firehose. Throw can also be used to , if the user is strong enough and can cast a wide biotic field, be used to reduce the power of incoming kinetic weapons. A throw field is very hard to maintain for more than a few seconds, but used properly, can render most small arms aside from sniper rifles useless for a couple of critical moments.

**Warp: **warp fields are already incorporated into many other forms of biotics, and warp is probably what most civilians think of when they imagine biotics. But warp has staggering utility as well.

Warp, applied to metallic doors, can fuse them shut in an instant. Shoved into a locking mechanism, it will reduce mechanical locks to slush, and carve holes right in most safes or vaults. Warp when applied to enemies directly is bad enough, but when used to weaken floors or key structural features such as support pillars, it can be an understandingly dangerous threat.

But more devious uses of warp are also possible. Warp effects, applied to a block of ammo, carve through enemy armor like butter. Powerful warp fields, confined to a small area, can be used to carve passages through rock, while when scattered weakly and over a large area, can completely sterilize a room. There are even some weapons makers who use warp to deform materials too hard to manipulate through any other method – salarian laser steel, for example, uses precision lasers to indicate where warp fields weaken steel molecular bonds a moment before the steel is compressed , allowing the steel a more uniform level of rigidity at certain key points.

* * *

**Creation of new biotic abilities **

Biotic scientists have made some progress into understanding the nature of biotics, and how it works. As a result, more and more biotic powers have been created. Some of the most impressive were originally accidental releases, which is why they are hard to replicate.

Typically, a biotic power uses one of several "baseline" abilities to focus on, and a "secondary" ability in case of higher-order abilities. As an example, pull is a combination of "generate low-gravity mass effect field" and "generate attractive mass effect field". Warp is merely many different pairings of "create unstable mass effect field" and "move mass effect field".

Most created abilities require large amounts of research to balance the mass effect fields and to tweak the amount of power and surge to make them work. Too much power and the field might collapse, or grow too big to manage, too little and the energy might just fizzle out. Some powers are limited to certain races because they carefully safeguard the method of initiation, like Nova, while other powers are secret because the users never allow aliens to grasp how the power even works.

Not all biotic abilities are listed in the Compendium of Powers – only those that are known to many practitioners. Biotics often slightly adjust or make variations to biotic powers, and often times these variations only work for that person, or a few people. There are dozens of other powers that can and have been used in the past and more to be found in the future.

* * *

**The Six Biotic Mysteries **

The use of biotics and it's study still leaves many unanswered questions. Over time, some of these have been resolved, and others have been written off as simply unimportant or unanswerable. But six continual questions have puzzled the biotic community again and again, with the result that they have been given a rather melodramatic title, the "Six Biotic Mysteries". The mysteries are enigmas, most of them hinting at something that salarian researchers feel must tie into the so-called unspent costs of biotics – the fact that some biotic abilities simply should not be possible without greater energy input, but they are. The gullible imply the Mysteries are all related to each other, and there are a thousand theories on what they mean.

The **First** Mystery is the power of Pull. Pull is the only power that ends up being able to pull in energy from the surroundings of the user, and it's one of the few powers that remains wasteful of energy regardless of the skill of the user. Krogan and Drell both developed pull independent of any asari influence and theirs works in exactly the same way. Yet every attempt to add the same ability to other biotic powers has ended in failure. No one knows why.

The **Second** Mystery is what is known as echo-pain. Often times after a biotic ability has been detonated, there is a backlash of some form of energy that radiates outward from the point of the biotic detonation. It is harmless, but makes biotics feel very uneasy for a reason none of them can explain. One human described it as "knowing I'd done something very wrong without knowing what or why". When it happens to biotic animals, they howl and flee.

The **Third** Mystery is the reaction eezo and biotics have with certain kinds of Prothean ruins. There are often large "standing stones" of greenish rock that, when hit with a biotic attack , utterly dissipate the energy without any effect to the rock. When a biotic touches one of these rocks, however, their biotics take on a greenish tinge for anywhere from twenty minutes to a few hours, and not only are more powerful, but are less tiring. There's no way to break or even effect the rocks, as they appear to be somehow 'locked' on a molecular level, but that doesn't stop research from continuing on the rocks. One experiment involved long-term contact with a rock, but after spending six minutes with his hand to the rock, the salarian test subject literally lost his mind, screaming incoherently and crushing his own skull with his own biotics.

The **Fourth** Mystery is the way Keepers react to the corpses of dead biotics. This has only happened a few times, but in every instance, rather than taking the corpse to the rendering pit, the Keepers completely ignore it. Keepers will gather up any other dead bodies almost immediately, although they relinquish them if a being tries to pull them out of their grasp, but they ignore dead biotics in every circumstance. With the ban on research on Keepers, this one is unlikely to be solved anytime soon.

The **Fifth** Mystery is an old Inusannon ruin on Gryt-III, an abandoned world without an atmosphere that is heavily bombarded by what looks like massive orbital strikes. The ruin is a wide plain of black basalt some five miles wide, with heavy sigils of pure eezo sunk into the perimeter. Any attempt to touch the eezo reveals it is somehow shifted out of phase with time, with the probing instrument (or fingers) suffering nearly ten thousand years of decay in a second. Non-biotics find the plain of basalt disturbing, but biotics who stand on it feel a sense of creeping horror and fear. Heavy research has revealed the plain is somehow suppressing a massive amount of EM radiation, but the source appears to be the empty air above the plain. Sensors reveal nothing there except a powerful spike in EM radiation. A salarian managed to suppress his fear long enough to attempt meditation at the center of the plain, but after about an hour he calmly got up, had a sip of water, spoke a few words in a language the translators did not have on file, and literally vanished into thin air. Further experiments of this type have ended with no effects. In a particularly creepy subnote, some two centuries after this experiment happened, researchers found a badly decayed salarian skeleton on Pathas, almost half the galaxy away from Gryt-III, and the skeleton was identified as that of the original researcher, badly damaged and very nearly melted by something.

The **Sixth** Mystery is the ghost-like image of an alien being that some biotics claim they can see in the middle of a biotic charge. The being is a ghostly grey-blue, with three black eye-like holes and a gaping, toothfilled squarish mouth in a blank, ball-like head. The body has four large arms and two heavily bent legs, and other features are indistinct. Biotics only see it as a flash before they arrive, but the vision always shakes them. Some biotics never see it, some see it once and resolve never to use the kanquess again. Inalia T'Rome, who took the longest known biotic charge ever at about 900 feet of distance, said that when she saw it, it appeared to be trying to communicate with her, but that all it did was make her freak out.

* * *

**Famous Biotics**

While biotics are not uncommon, only a few really stand out as something special. There are , of course, the obvious 'famous' biotics such as the Priestess of the Sun, but the biotics listed below are

famous specifically due to their biotic ability and not their position in society.

Rather than examine every known biotic of any fame, a sample of four that exemplify various approaches to biotics and their use have been chosen for military, espionage and research foci.

* * *

**Military Biotics of Note:**

_Major Jack Iriordan, Systems Alliance Commissariat : _While not the ranking commissar in the SA forces, Major Iriordan is perhaps the best known, appearing on countless recruiting posters and infomercials in the SA and across Citadel Space. A golden giant of a man, with a rakish smile , smoldering blue eyes, a strong jaw, long leonine blond hair, and a devil-may-care attitude, the major is more of a PR spokesman these days, but is also one of the SA's finest biotic practitioners. The major is credited with the creation of the Nova, and aided in creating Shear. He's most famous for his creative use of Tether, including a spectacular air-car chase involving hostages, where he literally biotically leapt from a pursuing vehicle, tethered himself to the car, and used pulls and throws to gain access to the inside of the car, disabling the driver. Force 6, Discrimination 5, Surge 7 , Reserve 8

_Gabrella Yukimura-Connor, Systems Alliance Intelligence : _Perhaps the most famous biotic prior to Commander Shepard in human space, Gabrella Connor was the very first human biotic to enter the military and reach the rank of C7. She later enlisted in the AIS and became the first biotic specialist known as a Fury. A dazzlingly beautiful woman of mixed Japanese and Scottish ancestry, she was involved in stopping a force of pirates while undercover, killing over thirty of them with nothing more than her biotics. An absolute master of Reave, her rather grim nickname is the Reaper. While not the most powerful of biotics, her discipline and combination of biotic talent with sheer creativity makes her 3, Discrimination 9, Surge 5 , Reserve 5

_Commander Sara Shepard, Spectre: _Already famous as the Butcher of Torfan, Sara Shepard became humanity's first Spectre and took down the rogue Saren. Although technicaly a Vanguard, Shepard passed the requirements for the elite Sentinel program as well as several other specialty courses. Though she does not have a wide array of biotics, she is one of the most skilled users of the asari version of biotic charge in the galaxy, widely believed to be on matriarch-skill levels with that power. While her sheer biotic strength rivals that of krogan, her bloodthirsty nature and direct style of confrontation means she can be outmaneuvered by a more skilled biotic. Force 9, Discrimination 4, Surge 8 , Reserve 3

_Tantrius Rakora, Primarch's Fist: _Stories of exactly what happened to the old Primarch's Fist Cabal during the First Contact War are sketchy, but the family that produced Tetrimus also produced a cousin who rose to the same rank. Tantrius , like his relative, has titanic reserves of power, if not the sheer lethal force of the Dagger. His hatred of pirates stems from an abortive assault on his colony, where as a boy he was able to kill six attackers simultaneously with a single Flare. Now in charge of the most powerful and prestigious Cabal in the Turian Hierarchy, Tantrius goal is to face down and defeat his corrupt relative and redeem his family's honor. Force 4 Discrimination 8, Surge 6 , Reserve 10

* * *

**Biotic Assassins of Note:**

_Inalia T'Rome, champion to House T'Rome : _ No collection of biotic masters would be complete without refernce to the Azure Lily. Inalia has been an enforcer and assassin for the Thirty for over six hundred years, facing down all manner of opposition. She has killed more biotics than any other being, due to her mastery of the Dissipate technique. A blindingly fast set of martial arts attacks and her ability to use both biotics as well as certain info-war techniques means she is ready for any opposition. She is perhaps best remembered for being able to singlehandedly board a pirate cruiser, slaughter most of it's crew, sabotage it's drive core, and perform a 900-foot biotic charge to her escape craft before it exploded. She is though to be perhaps the most 'perfect' biotic in existence, balanced at an extremely high level of skill and power on all fronts. Force 9, Discrimination 9, Surge 9 , Reserve 9

_Tetrimus Rakora, Mouth of the Shadow Broker: _The creator of the Beam technique , Tetrimus was undoubtedly the most famous of the turian biotics that formed the Primarch's Fist, a powerful cabal deployed in the FCW. Unfortunately, his last assault to take down General Williams was actually a trap, and his entire team was killed. Worse, due to the failure to neutralize Williams, the turian forces walked into a well-prepared enemy and suffered horrific casualties. Tetrimus fought his way free, only to be abandoned and left for dead as a dishonored failure. He was somehow rescued and rebuilt by the Shadow Broker, becoming his "Mouth", and for the past 30 years has acted as the only public face of the Broker. Tetrimus has faced down and defeated some of the most powerful foes or forces in the galaxy, including a fight with the Priestess of the Sun Benezia T'Soni some 20 years ago that tore apart most of a city before the Matriarch had to retreat. Unbelievably powerful and incredibly skilled, Tetrimus is also a master at stealth, infiltration, sabotage, hacking, and dozens of other fields. Force 10, Discrimination 8, Surge 5, Reserve 10

"_Ghost-Step", asari assassin: _A horrific accident left this asari's face a wrecked ruin, which was replaced by blueware cybernetics. With eyes that can see EM fields and heat, and a body laced with hundreds of millions of credits worth of biotic-compatible cyberware, Ghost-Step is a nightmare opponent. She works for the highest bidders only, sometimes on assassination missions, other times with the equally mysterious Kasumi Goto. A brilliant master of the powers of salvo and singularity, she has developed a variant that somehow combines the two, leaving opponents blasted to pieces. Her sheer level of skill is breathtaking, but her biotics are intended for very short, lethal fights, and she cannot say in a battle long before being exhausted, due to her extensive cyberware. Force 3, Discrimination 10, Surge 10 , Reserve 7

"_Shift" , Blue Suns salarian Assassin: _This disgraced salarian was once a form master, a highly respected biotic specialist in the salarian STG. For reasons known only to him and the STG, he quit , striking out on his own and becoming a mercenary, eventually becoming a member of the Blue Suns Corporation. Known for being impossibly fast and agile, Shift has incorporated his reflexes into a form of what he calls walking meditation, tying it into biotic charge, and is able to dodge things that shouldn't even be possible. Videos of him literally flying through hundreds of rounds of heavy LMG fire to slaughter the gunners, or dodging shots from gunships with backflips before taking the gunship out with a flare, are well known, as is his habit of killing his targets with Flay. Force 2, Discrimination 10, Surge 7 , Reserve 2

* * *

**Biotic Researchers of Note**

_Meleissa Cory, Harvard University: _Until recently, humans were not well recognized in the fields of biotic research, but Meleissa Cory is changing all that. Dr. Cory has two doctorate degrees, one in physics and one in biotic studies, and is in the forefront of biotic research. Engaged to Major Jack Iriordan, the two have helped develop or unravel many biotic powers, and the lady is a dangerous biotic in her own right. While a civilian and thus not as strong as most biotics, her understanding of how they work, and her many years of training, give her a certain level of expertise most don't have. And her penchant for experimentation means she usually has something nasty up her sleeve. Force 1, Discrimination 9, Surge 1 , Reserve 4

_Gal Uran, Volus Defense Force Research: _Like most volus, Gal Uran is in biotic research because he is motivated by money. The fact that he can assist the Vol Protectorate at the same time is merely a bonus, and all volus like bonuses. Gal Uran is the primary developer of the VDF's biotic program as well as one of it's first products. While not an impressive biotic by any means, he has developed some of the most creative Volus techniques, including Smear and Equalize. The latter, known for being utterly lethal to asari, has given him the nickname "Wavekiller", after he had to take out an asari biotic assassin who targeted him for such research. The fight was very short and ended very badly for the asari in question, who not only got equalized but was then blown to pieces by a Flare. Force 4, Discrimination 5, Surge 7 , Reserve 3

"_Walks in Darkness", asari cult leader: _Authorities aren't sure of the actual identify of this matriarch, but she was one of the first asari to start a biotic cult among humans, and her efforts have spread far and wide. The independent colony of Tuthus now sees her as a living Goddess, and her supporters, numbering well over three million, would die to protect her. Only a small fraction of her worshippers are biotics, but at last count over nine thousand of them had linked with her. Rumor suggests she's some kind of ardat-yakshi, but the number of people she has linked with disproves this theory. Her goals are unknown, her preaching urges non-biotics to aid biotics and follow their leadership into a new era, and to prepare for a coming darkness. Walks In Darkness often repeats the insane mantras of the strange volus millionaire Kumun Shol of Klencory, who rants about "beings of light" coming to defend against an invasion of darkness. Force 9, Discrimination 5, Surge 7 , Reserve 8

_Transcendant One Eni Galsha, Salarian Institute of the Mind: _At 48, Eni Galsha is ancient for a salarian. No longer the blazing flame he was in youth, his powers have faded with time and he knows death races for him , but he spends most of his time in research. Probably the most famous biotic researcher in the Citadel regions, Eni Galsha is the creator of the Three Laws of Biotics, as well as a multitude of powers, including Channel, Lens, and possibly Disrupt. Once called the Transcendent One due to his mastery of the m'Gann slow-time ability, Eni Galsha was able to defeat a dozen powerful biotic killers with a single use of throw and a pile of iron rods from a construction site in less than a second. The Priestess of the Sun called him "unkillable" and he was able to fight and defeat the feared Tyriun No Kage in a duel that ended in No Kage being torn apart by counter-rotating singularities. Force 6, Discrimination 5, Surge 7 , Reserve 8


End file.
